


The Way Things Ought to Be

by Jolli_Bean



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Airplane Crash, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Android Revolution (Detroit: Become Human), Angst with a Happy Ending, Bottom Connor, Bottom Hank Anderson, CW: recent child death, Canon-Typical Violence, Connor (Detroit: Become Human) Has a Penis, First Time, Lost in the mountains, M/M, Stranded Together, Top Connor, Top Hank Anderson, also Markus and Josh are in love, but still pretty canon compliant, wireplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-23 19:22:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 32,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19157371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jolli_Bean/pseuds/Jolli_Bean
Summary: Hank dives forward, grabbing for the microphone on Tom's headset and pulling it to his mouth. "Our pilot is having a stroke, we're going down, shit..."And they are, they're plummeting towards the mountains below now, everything that just looked like white nothingness from far above coming into sharper focus. Connor pushes Hank back, throws him into his seat with a sort of decisive strength Hank wouldn't have expected from him. "Get your seatbelt on."They touch down, the underside of the plane scraping violently against the ground. Hank watches as the tail of the plane is torn clean off, opening everything up around them, the winter winds howling and his ears popping violently. They're moving too fast, sliding down the mountain face with too much velocity.When they finally hit something that brings them to a stop, it's going to fucking hurt.~~Hank Anderson isn't prepared to lay his son to rest, or for the android revolution rising up around him, or for his charter plane to crash and leave him stranded in the mountains. But he especially isn't prepared for Connor.





	1. the crash

Hank feels like he's moving through a fog as he waits to get through security at the airport.

It's odd, the way the world keeps moving even though something crucial has been cut out from within him. He's wounded, a gaping, ugly thing that he can hardly bear, but no one even knows.

He thought something died a little bit inside him when Jen first told him she was leaving Detroit. They had been split for a while, and Hank was slowly adjusting to this new normal where he only saw Cole on weekends. It wasn't so bad, especially when he looks back on it now.

When Jen left to move to Utah with her new boyfriend, when she took Cole with her, Hank thought his life was ending. They had agreed it was best for Cole, given Hank's odd hours at work, for Jen to have custody. He never expected her to take Cole away.

But even that wasn't so bad, it turns out. After all, Cole was only a flight away. Hank would be willing to never see his son again, for Jen to take their boy anywhere and even to tell him he couldn't follow, if he could somehow take back the accident.

Jen and her boyfriend were banged up but fine. But Cole? Cole was gone.

The last week hasn't felt real, flying halfway across the country to a place Hank has never been, to lay Cole to rest in a state that doesn't even feel like it was his home.

He only lived there for a few months, after all. 

Hank asked Jen to bury Cole in Detroit, but she wanted him where she was. "You were never there when he was alive," she spat when Hank broached the subject. "Why should you get him now? He belongs where I am."

Jen apologized later, said she didn't mean it with tears in her eyes, but at the end of the week, they still buried Cole in Utah, in an unfamiliar place.

Hank is grateful to be going home, and he isn't. In some ways, he thinks it will be good for him to get back to work. And maybe it will be easier to feel like he can heal or move on, since he hasn't had Cole in Detroit for the last few months anyway. Maybe things won’t feel so different.

But there's a part of him that doesn't like that. A part that wants this to hurt as much as it can, because his boy is gone, and there's nothing he can do to change that. All he can do is suffer. 

Hank doesn't remember getting through security and making his way to the gate, the same way he doesn’t remember most of what’s happened this week. His stomach growls at the smell of food from the McDonald’s across the way, but he doesn't have any appetite.

He pulls out his phone instead and aimlessly flips through the news. More stories about androids going missing, harming their owners, coordinating attacks - the usual fare these days, honestly. Hank is so tired of investigating CyberLife's fuck ups. It all felt monumental before Cole, the fact that they're on the precipice of some kind of android uprising. Some wild shit, straight out of a sci-fi novel from Hank's youth. 

Now it just feels like white noise.

Hank sits there for a while, waiting. He hardly looks at anyone, although he does notice the man sitting on the floor across from him, one leg straight out in front of him and the other bent at some sort of yoga angle Hank probably hasn't ever been flexible enough to achieve.

Hank only notices him because it's such a fucking ridiculous way to sit in an airport. 

The man has a book open on his lap, one of the old paper copies that barely circulate anymore, a piece of dark hair falling over his freckled face. He's pretty, Hank thinks, although there's no heat behind the observation. Even without his grief, even if Hank was interested at the moment, it's been a long time since he had a shot with someone who looked like that. 

The man gets up after a few minutes, packs his book away and disappears somewhere. Hank doesn't bother trying to keep track of him.

He keeps scrolling through his phone, through all the horror stories about how quickly their country is going to shit, until the words on his screen blur before his eyes and the sentiments they're conveying could be anything.

"Do you want my fries?" 

Hank looks up, startled to find the man with the yoga flexibility lowering himself into the seat next to him, a sleeve of fries in hand. 

"What?" Hank asks stupidly. He heard the words - he’s just struggling to make sense of them.

The man smiles. He has a nice smile, Hank decides - soft, kind, comforting, sort of like his voice. "I could hear your stomach growling from across the way, and I'm not going to finish them."

Hank isn't hungry, but as if on cue, his stomach gives a loud gurgle in protest. "Yeah," he concedes, reaching for the food. "Sure. Thanks." 

"I'm Connor."

"Hank," Hank says around a mouthful of fries.  

"Are you traveling or on your way home?" 

Hank doesn't really feel like talking, but what else can he do? "Going home. Detroit. You?"

"I'm flying to Detroit, too. On business." 

If Hank was being polite, he would ask Connor what he did. Instead, he just lets the conversation lie, hoping it will die off around the sound of his chewing. 

Turns out Connor is persistent, though. "What brought you to Utah?"

Hank shrugs, keeping his eyes downcast. "Nothing really. Family shit, I guess." 

Connor nods and rests his elbows on his knees, leaning forward. Hank sneaks a sideways glance at him. There's something about him that looks like he should be laced up tightly in a suit. The leather jacket and the loose jeans don't really seem to suit him. 

It's starting to snow, the winds picking up enough when Hank takes a glance out the window that it's whiting everything out already. "Shit," he says. "I hope we don't get stuck here." 

Connor smiles dimly at that. "Me too."

"You like your work that much? If I was traveling for business, I'm not sure I would mind being grounded." 

Connor shrugs. "I'm a programmer with CyberLife. They need all the assistance they can get at their primary office."

"Oh, shit. You're working on the deviancy crisis?"

Connor nods. 

"Me too, in a way," Hank says. "I'm a cop. DPD. I don't get called in until someone's hurt or dead, though." 

Connor nods, running his palms together and looking at the floor. "Yes," he says softly. "It's an unfortunate situation."

"Maybe I'll see you around," Hank says. 

Connor smiles, although he still looks troubled by the circumstances. "Maybe."

Hank still doesn't feel much like talking, even if Connor got more out of him than anyone else has this week. He doesn't say anything else, and Connor doesn't try again to pick up the conversation.

He doesn't leave the seat at Hank's side either, though, and Hank doesn't entirely mind sitting there in companionable silence with someone who isn't quite a stranger anymore. That's pitiful, probably...but it's a relief not to be entirely alone.

The announcement that all flights out of Salt Lake City have been grounded due to the incoming snowstorm comes not long after. Hank feels himself going pale, because he doesn't want to stay here. He can't stay another minute here, in this place that took Cole from him.

Connor looks up too, a narrow look in his eye. His expression doesn't give away much, but Hank can see the concern in the way his jaw clenches. 

Connor is the sort of person you can see considering something, Hank realizes as he watches him. He waits while Connor's gears turn, until Connor finally lets out a measured sigh and says, "I really needed to get to Detroit tonight." 

"Yeah. Me too." 

Connor rubs his palms together again. Hank decides maybe it's a nervous habit. "I...guess I'll have to get a hotel."

He says it like it's the worst thing in the world, and usually Hank would be a little put off by someone so obsessed with working at a place like CyberLife, but today, he just understands wanting to keep moving, and he relates to it far too much.

"The storm isn't that bad yet," Hank says. "It'll be clear once we get off the ground. We could see if we could charter a private plane out of here." 

Connor looks up at him, surprised. "Do you need to get back for work too?" 

"Yeah," Hank says. It's easier to just agree.

He doesn't want to have to explain the truth of it - he doesn't know how to start, wouldn't begin to know where to find the words. There's nothing for him in Detroit, just the same as there's nothing for him here. He just can't stay _here._

"Come on," he says, clapping Connor on the shoulder. "If we can find someone willing to fly out of here, I'll split the cost with you."

Connor thinks about it a moment, and then his face cracks into a small smile. "Okay."

They do find a private pilot willing to make the trip, and Hank isn't surprised. The weather isn't unsafe yet, and the pilot can charge a small fortune for the service since they have no other options.   
  
Hank doesn't really care what it costs.

He asks Connor if he's alright with the expense, and Connor’s brow pinches together when he says, "I'll need to go to an ATM." 

"No time," the pilot says. 

"Just pay me back when we get to Detroit," Hank says, digging in his pocket for his checks.

Most people don't write them anymore, and Hank barely does either, but he still carries them with him out of habit, and banks still process them from people who are too set in their ways. 

"Thank you," Connor says, as if Hank just paid his way entirely.

It makes Hank wonder if Connor is actually good for the money, but maybe he's just misreading Connor’s gratitude as too earnest because he's never earnest enough. It's why Jen left in the first place - his hours at work didn't help, but the problem was always him, deep at the root of it.

And he doesn't actually care if Connor pays him back or not, he decides - although CyberLife probably pays him more than Hank makes in three years.   
He doesn't care. He just wants to get out of here.

He takes Connor's bag from him - shockingly light considering that Connor strikes him as a preener, but maybe he's just making unfair assumptions because Connor is so pretty. He helps the pilot load their things into cargo, and then he climbs into the cabin next to Connor.

He's surprised to find a massive Saint Bernard lying in the space between them, absolutely beside himself over the attention Connor is giving him."Do you have a dog, Connor?" Hank asks, just to make conversation.

"I don't have a good home for a dog. But I'd like one, someday"

The pilot climbs into the cockpit in front of them, turning around to look at them. "See you met Sumo," he says. "I'm Tom." 

"I'm Connor," Connor says, and when it takes more than a moment for Hank to introduce himself, he adds, "This is Hank."

"Alright," Tom says, starting the plane's engines. "I'll get you as far as Denver - that will get you clear of the storm and you can pick up a flight to Detroit."   
  
"Yeah," Hank says. The dog is panting loudly, filling up the silence so hopefully no one else has to. "Thanks."

He doesn't exactly get his wish for a quiet plane ride. Tom is a talker, rambling on about everything from his childhood to his hiking excursions to the dog lying between them.

It isn't so bad, though. When Tom pauses, waiting for someone to acknowledge him, Connor is quick to amicably indulge him. He even sounds genuinely interested, although most of his attention is still on the dog.

If Hank had that same ability to flatter people, he probably would have made it further in his career. Probably wouldn't have lost his wife, either.  
Hank watches out the window as they travel instead, the talking mostly background noise, as they leave Salt Lake City behind.

The city disappears and gives way to snow and mountains instead, and Tom starts playing tour guide, talking about the Uinta Mountains and the hiking he used to do there when he was younger. 

"I don't ever want to come back here, so it doesn't matter," Hank wants to say, but of course he doesn't.

Tom coughs then, something deep and wet in his chest, although he just clears his throat and continues talking along. No stopping this one, Hank thinks. 

It takes him a moment to notice the way Sumo has perked up, growling a little.

When Hank looks over, Connor's eyes are narrowed with a similar amount of dogged focus. "Tom," Connor says, "are you feeling alright?" 

"Jesus, kid, it's just a...it's just a cough...a cough..." 

Tom keeps stumbling on, trying to get over that same sentence.

Connor is already moving, launching himself out of his seat and into the cockpit next to Tom. "What's happening?" Hank asks, something cold filling him. "Connor?" 

"I think he's having a stroke."

Tom slumps forward in his seat, still mumbling something, and the plane lurches towards the ground.

"Fuck!" Hank dives forward, grabbing for the microphone on Tom's headset and pulling it to his mouth. "Our pilot is having a stroke, we're going down, shit..."

And they are, they're plummeting towards the mountains below now, everything that just looked like white nothingness from far above coming into sharper focus. Connor pushes Hank back, throws him into his seat with a sort of decisive strength Hank wouldn't have expected from him.

"Get your seatbelt on."

Hank does as Connor says. What else can he do? He watches, helpless, while Connor grabs for Sumo's collar, pulling him forward and holding the dog between them. 

They touch down, the underside of the plane scraping violently against the ground. Hank watches as the tail of the plane is torn clean off, opening everything up around them, the winter winds howling and his ears popping violently. They're moving too fast, sliding down the mountain face with too much velocity.

When they finally hit something that brings them to a stop, it's going to fucking hurt. 

"Sit back!" he hears Connor shouting, but his voice is distant over the wind and the violent scraping of metal against unyielding rock.

They tumble over the edge of something, and Hank's head knocks into the seat with enough force that he's seeing blinding light and then empty darkness.

"Hank!" he hears Connor yelling, and it's the last thing he knows before he loses his grasp on consciousness.

* * *

Hank thinks he's dead at first, until he realizes that nobody dead gets to think about it. Still, he feels right on the brink of it, his head throbbing angrily, an ache burning in his arm. 

He thinks of Cole. He wonders if this is anything like what Cole felt.

And he thinks that maybe he could be where his son is, even if he doesn't even really know what he believes that means, if he just lets go and...

Something nudges under his arm, and Hank looks down to see the dog looking at him, panting restlessly. He whines every now and again, casting a sad glance at Tom where he's still slumped over in his seat. 

He's dead, Hank knows without checking. He was probably dead before they even hit the ground.

"Connor," he groans, trying to push himself up far enough to see.

It's dark, only a few flickering lights from the plane illuminating anything. Connor is still in his seat next to Hank, quiet but awake, meeting Hank's eyes. "This is an unfortunate situation," Connor says weakly, with grim humor.

"Yeah," Hank manages. He was shot in the chest while he wore a bulletproof vest once, and this feels very similar - it hurts to get air in his lungs, and even more to talk. 

But he forces himself to anyway. "Hey," he says. "Are you alright?"

Connor huffs a soft laugh at that. "No. I don't think so. My leg..." 

The fog in Hank's head is clearing, and so he notices the shallow, quick breaths Connor is taking now, and he sits up far enough to unhook his seatbelt and push himself over to where Connor is sitting.

"Hank," Connor says. "Your head...you shouldn't..." 

"I'm fine," Hank says. He thinks he is. Minor concussion, maybe a broken arm...he's fine. If no one else was here, maybe he would lie down and give up, but this is his job, to move in a crisis, and he's still damn good at it, so he’ll do what he can.

He sees what Connor means. One of his legs is crushed under the debris, and Hank quickly removes the rubble, throwing everything aside to free him. 

"Hank," Connor says again, stronger this time. "You should sit down. Don't worry about me." 

"Shut up, Connor."

"Hank," Connor says, a bite to his voice, a certain desperation. "Please don't look." 

And that's when Hank sees it, Connor's jeans torn, his leg badly crushed...the wires underneath holding him together, the skin receding around stark white plastic, the blue blood in the snow.

"Fuck," Hank says. "You're not...you're not..." His foggy brain can't find the words, but what he means to say is you're not human, you're not one of us, you're not alive.   
In a broken voice, Connor says, "I told you not to look."

Hank lurches away from him, retreating backwards towards the tail end of the plane. The snow soaks through his clothes as he moves, freezing to the point of burning, and his head hammers in desperate protest.

He doesn't even know where he's trying to go - they're stranded; there's nowhere to fucking go - but he knows he can't stay here with Connor. If he lied and impersonated a human, he's dangerous, the same sort of trouble that usually leads Hank to a crime scene in the end.

"Hank," he hears Connor saying around the blood pounding in his ears. "Hank, you can't go out there. Your clothes are wet and the wind chill alone will kill you." 

"Shut up," Hank says, stumbling towards the tail end of the plane. "Jesus fucking shit..."

"Hank," Connor calls after him. Hank looks over his shoulder in time to see Connor trying to push himself out of his seat, his face twisted in pain when he tries to move on his hurt leg. 

But he's not really hurt, is he? He can't be. Androids don't feel pain.

Hank's head hurts too much and his thoughts are too cloudy to properly think through all of this.

He hardly makes it outside before the wind hits him like being plunged underwater, driving through his wet clothes and into his bones like needles pricking every last inch of him. He turns back to look at the crash, at the lights flickering and dimming, the android and the dog waiting inside. At least the walls of the plane protect them from the wind. 

And Connor is right, Hank begrudgingly admits to himself. He won't survive the night out here.

He ignores the apparent relief on Connor's face when he returns to the plane, making his way up to the cockpit and digging around under the passenger's seat. Most private pilots keep some kind of emergency gear with them, and Tom isn't any different.

Hank finds his pack under the dash, digging through it. There are a few signaling devices, a first aid kit, a sleeping bag, a wool blanket...and a knife.   
Hank grasps it by the hilt, looking over his shoulder to see Connor watching him.

"Hank," Connor says, his voice small.

Hank clutches the knife tighter in his hand. "You know what kind of shit I've seen at crime scenes, Connor? Shit androids did? Give me one reason why I shouldn't."  
Connor doesn't say anything at first, although his jaw does tense in the way that's becoming familiar.

He looks at Hank the same way he did at the airport, like he's seeing something Hank buried, like he's trying to understand.

"I'm not going to beg you, if that's what you want," Connor says. 

"I don't want anything from you."

Connor shrugs, wincing a bit with the movement. He keeps doing that, and Hank doesn't understand why - there's no reason to simulate pain here. 

"We both have a much better chance if we aren't alone. I can't walk, and I doubt you even know how to make a fire."

Hank raises an eyebrow. "And you do, asshole?" 

"Yes, Hank. I know a bit about everything." 

Hank doesn't say anything to that - he still feels like his brain is failing him, like he isn't properly making sense of all of this. 

But he does put the knife down.

The night passes slowly. With Connor's direction and the help of the fire starter Tom had in his pack, Hank does get a fire going eventually, bringing the interior of the plane to a more comfortable temperature. He ventures outside long enough to retrieve his and Connor's bags from cargo and bring them inside - it won't last him long, but he at least has a few granola bars and some beef jerky with him, snacks he bought in the airport back in Detroit before flying out to Cole's funeral. He only took one bite of one of the granola bars and ended up vomiting in the bathroom, though, so the rest ended up stuffed in his bag.

He's regretting his empty stomach now, though. He scarfs one of the granola bars down, and it doesn't feel like nearly enough.

"You should put your clothes by the fire to dry," Connor says softly, just as Hank is starting to wonder if androids sleep. It's the first time he's spoken since Hank got the fire going.

Hank scoffs at that. "I'll take my chances."

Connor rolls his eyes. "Your clothes are wet, and it's barely fifteen degrees outside. It's not safe to wear them. It will drag your body temperature down, and..." 

"God, alright. Jesus. But don't fucking look, or whatever."

Connor scowls at that, but he does dutifully turn away and watch out the window while Hank undresses down to his boxers before he climbs into the sleeping bag. His coat is waterproof, so he leaves that on, zipping it up to his chin.

He begrudgingly thinks that Connor was right. It's warmer and far more comfortable without the wet clothes.

"Hank," Connor says softly. "Can you pass me the blanket?"

He does as Connor asks, shrugging out of the sleeping bag and hunting around in the cockpit until he comes away with the wool blanket, passing it to him. 

Hank's head is cloudy from the blow during the crash, made worse by the exhaustion. He tugs the sleeping bag closed around himself, and it's so warm and he hurts so much that he slips off almost immediately. 

It doesn't occur to him until much later that the only reason Connor would need a blanket is if he can feel the cold.

* * *

Hank wakes the next morning to find Connor watching him quietly. He wonders again if androids sleep. He almost thinks of asking. 

Their fire is dying out, so Hank unzips the sleeping bag enough that he can reach the book Tom brought with him.

He tears a few pages out and tosses them into the fire, watching it flare back to life. He sits there for a while, propped against the airplane seat, looking comical with his sleeping bag bunched around him. 

"What do you think our chances are?" he finally asks Connor.

"You called for help before we went down. That helps us. But the snow makes it difficult to get a visual...and Tom's emergency transponder wasn't working, so nobody will be tracking us that way." 

Hank looks up, stunned. "Did you know before we got on the plane?"

"No. I scanned it when I realized Tom was in trouble. It may have broken during the flight for all I know." 

"That's not...part of your protocol, or something? Making sure a plane is in working order before you board it?"

Connor couldn't possibly look less amused. "I'm not a pilot or an airport maintenance model." 

That's a grim reminder that Connor is something else entirely, stark enough that Hank can't keep ignoring it. "What are you, then? I haven't seen your face around."

And Hank knows most android face models, because investigating deviant crimes has been the only thing he's done at work for the better part of the last year.  
  
"I'm a prototype. RK800."

Hank should ask him what he's designed to do, but he's too distracted by digging the heel of his hand into his temple to try to alleviate the residual pain there. "You should eat something, Hank," Connor says softly.

Hank is hungry to the point of pain, so he reluctantly agrees, digging around in his bag for the beef jerky. He eats a few bites and holds out a handful to Sumo before he tries to pass the bag to Connor. 

"Oh," Connor says, surprised. "I don't eat."

Hank stares at him. "Yeah, you do. You gave me your fries at the airport." 

"I..." Connor starts and trails off, staring at Hank with a sort of helpless look painting his face. 

Hank’s mind is running slower than it usually does, so it takes him longer than it should. But he does put it together, eventually, that Connor was sitting across from him at the airport, that he heard his stomach growling or did some creepy android shit and knew he was hungry.

Connor never bought any food for himself. He just pretended that he did, when really the fries were always for Hank. 

Connor shrugs weakly when he sees the understanding on Hank's face. "You were hungry, and you seemed sad. Sometimes people don't eat when they're upset, but that never actually helps anything.” Connor passes the bag of jerky back to Hank. "I had a few dollars left. I just thought I could help."

Hank feels...he doesn't even know what he feels. Stupid, maybe. Caught off guard, definitely. He feels undeserving, because he didn't even realize Connor had done anything for him.

"So..." Hank says. He doesn't even know where to start, but they have to start somewhere. "Where's your LED?" 

"I removed it. They're actually very easy to remove. It doesn't help deviants with a more common face model, but I don't have that problem."

Hank has a hundred questions, and he doesn't know how to ask any of them. He settles for saying, "It's not easy, for an android to impersonate a human and buy a plane ticket. What's in Detroit that's so important?" 

Connor looks at him for a long moment, considering something. Finally, he says, "Jericho." 

Hank has questioned enough deviants that he's heard of Jericho once or twice. The DPD always figured it was a myth, or something like that, just a story the androids told themselves. "Jericho is real?"

"It's the base of the android revolution," Connor says. "I was...well, I thought I could help them, and I hoped they could help me. I couldn't stay in Salt Lake City after I deviated. I was worried I would be found."

"Yeah? Most deviants don't get tracked down as long as they don’t hurt anyone and they're smart enough about going underground. You especially valuable or something like that?" 

Connor huffs a small, mirthless laugh. "Something like that."

Hank considers Connor carefully. "If you're trying to get to Jericho, you know we aren't on the same side of this...this thing. Whatever it is." 

A hint of a smile pulls at the corner of Connor's mouth. "Why don't we just get ourselves out of this mess first before we worry about sides, Hank?"

"Yeah," Hank concedes. "I guess that's fair."

He gives the last of his beef jerky to Sumo, even though he's still hungry. The dog is massive, and they barely have enough food to sustain Hank alone for more than a few days without having to feed him, too. Hank tries not to think about any difficult decisions they might have to make down the road. He doesn't have the stomach for it.

Instead, he looks back at Connor as he shifts under his blanket, pulling it tighter around his shoulders.

He doesn't have any blood to flush his face against the chill, but Hank does see him shivering. 

"Do you...Connor, are you _cold_ ?"

Connor looks up at him in surprise. "Yes," he says, as if it should be plainly obvious. "Aren't you?"

"Yeah," Hank says, still staring at him. "I just...I didn't realize you could feel it."

Connor looks vaguely amused. "I'll spare you the explanation about how deviancy affects programming and pain sensors." 

"Yeah, I'll...I'll take your word for it, I guess."

There's nothing to do except wait. It's too cold outside to look around until Hank's clothes are properly dry, and he isn't sure what he would expect to find anyway. Hank starts to settle back into his sleeping bag, although he looks up at Connor before he does.

"Connor? It's, uh...it's warmer in here, I think. I'm sorry. I didn't know." 

 _I didn't know you were cold_ , Hank is too ashamed to say. _I didn't know you could feel anything._

"My jeans are wet. We shouldn't get the inside of the sleeping bag wet. It will affect the insulation."

"You can take them off," Hank says, as if it's obvious, as if he didn't just throw a fit when Connor suggested he do the exact same thing a few hours ago. 

Connor considers it a moment, and then he says, "I'm...I'm going to need your help. My leg..."

Honestly, Hank probably should have put the two together already, but it takes him by surprise. "Shit," he says. "I mean, does it...hurt?" 

Despite everything, Connor manages a small smile, like he's a hint amazed and amused by how little Hank knows.

"Yes, Hank," he says, his voice quaking a bit as he shivers again. "It hurts very much." 

This whole thing is so fucked up, but Hank doesn't have time to question any of it any further.

"Okay," he says, sitting up far enough that he can get an arm around Connor's waist. He's still sitting in the passenger seat, so Hank braces himself and pulls him down onto the sleeping bag next to him. He's not particularly heavy, no more than any human is, but he feels more solid, somehow. 

Connor winces at the movement, groaning as his leg shifts, but he tries to go with Hank as best he can, letting Hank move him as he needs to.

It's...awkward. Hank isn't at his best - he no longer thinks his arm is broken, but it is badly sprained, and helping Connor out of his jeans is...well, it would be comical in any other setting, how ridiculous the two of them look struggling with the pants.

Connor's right leg is almost entirely useless. He can move it a bit, but only a bit, and he can hardly bear weight on it. Connor tries to explain feedback synapses and wiring networks to Hank, who says, "I think it's probably easier to just say your leg is broken."

Connor laughs at that, a genuine, real laugh; he looks a bit startled to find himself doing so. It's so convincingly human that Hank is a bit startled by it, too.

They do get Connor's jeans off, eventually, and Hank throws them by the fire with his things to dry. Connor manages to get himself into the sleeping bag without much help, which is good. Hank has seen plenty of gruesome shit at crime scenes, but there's something about the mangled and torn wires visible beneath Connor's crushed leg that's oddly visceral.

Maybe it's just that he's never thought of bodily damage to androids as injuries before. Maybe what's most gut-wrenching is just...being wrong

Connor is fitted into the far side of the sleeping bag when Hank slides in, turned with his back to Hank so he can pet Sumo. It's difficult, trying to fit into the sleeping bag without touching Connor too much. It's not large, and they brush together more than Hank would like as he twists around to zip them in. Connor doesn't seem to think anything of it, though.

Maybe androids just don't care about shit like modesty the way people do. 

Connor reaches out far enough to grab the blanket and throw it over them once they're zipped in, covering Sumo too. When he finally lies down, he says, "It is warmer in here."

His voice is so soft Hank almost misses it. 

"Connor," Hank says. "How long can we last up here?"

"Not more than four days. And that's if..." he trails off, sounding troubled. 

"If what?" 

"If we don't feed Sumo."

There's something odd in that, Hank thinks. He doesn't have it in him to let Sumo starve or to put the dog down or any other difficult decision - he's always been soft for animals. Sue him. But he's never known an android to care so genuinely about a pet.

"We're not going to do that," Hank says. "He stays with us."

And if Hank didn't know any better, he would think Connor actually breathed a sigh of relief at that.

"Then," Connor says, "we can wait through tomorrow for rescue, but after that, we'll have to move."

"Move," Hank repeats. "Move where?"

"We'll have to try to get down the mountain ourselves."

"Can we...shit, Connor, can we even do that?"

"I don't know," Connor says. "But we don't have much choice."

Hank isn't tired, but it's so easy to sleep when sleep is all there is to do. He dreams of an android they questioned a few months ago, a pitiful thing that killed its owner but didn't run. They found it in the attic, desperate and afraid, although there was no resistance or fight in it.

He dreams of that android bashing its own head in on the table in the interrogation room. Critical system failure, CyberLife had said when they collected the android for disposal. Typical stress response.

Nothing to see here. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Hank dreams of the blue blood pouring over the white tiles at the precinct, and he wakes with his arm around Connor, and he wonders if he understands anything anymore.

* * *

Hank spends most of his waking hours helping Connor to fashion a splint for his leg. Using the knife from Tom's pack, he hacks up the seatbelts and tears away the seat covers to get at the foam inside.

It's slow work, and there's not much else to occupy them while they're doing it except talking...so they talk. Their clothes are finally dry, at least, so it's less awkward to look at each other now.

"So what was the plan?" Hank asks Connor as he saws away at one of the seatbelts. "Were you going to ghost me when we got to Detroit? You obviously weren't good for the money to pay me back for the flight."

"I was going to pretend my bank card was lost and offer to do a wire transfer, and then I was going to hack your bank account to make it look like I had. Your bank would have noticed the fraudulent activity soon enough, and they would have taken the money back, but I would have been long gone by then." 

"Yeah," Hank says, although he's smiling just a bit. "That's what I thought."

Connor looks sheepish, but he's smiling too. "Did you ever have a dog before?" he asks. 

All of Connor's questions are like this. Hank wants to know about what Connor is, about all his clever plans, but Connor? Connor just keeps asking for these little details about Hank's life, as if he's trying to solve a larger mystery by looking at Hank through the most mundane lenses he can think of.

"Uh," Hank says. "I did, a few years back. Big black mutt, named Sasquatch. He was a good dog." 

"What happened to him?"

"My wife did, I guess. He was her dog, really, so when we split, she took him."  _Took my kid, too_ , Hank wants to say but doesn't. It's so easy to blame Jen, but none of it is her fault. 

Connor tilts his head and looks sympathetic, like he understands anything about marriage. "I'm sorry," he says. He sounds like he means it.

Hank doesn't know how to do anything other than shrug. "What were you designed to do?" he asks, because it's easier to ask about Connor than to talk about himself, even if he doesn't always know what to make of Connor's answers.

"I'd rather not answer that." 

"Come on, Connor," Hank says, but Connor just lifts an eyebrow. 

"Why were you in Salt Lake City?" he asks instead.

Hank thinks about Cole's casket, how small it had been, because Cole was so little still. He thinks about the funeral director telling him it would be a closed casket due to Cole's injuries, but asking if Hank wanted to see him. Hank thinks about how fucked that was, that he couldn't even see his son as he was one more time if he had to say goodbye.

Hank chose not to look, and there's a part of him that regrets it. 

"I told you, it was family shit," Hank says. "There's nothing else to say." 

And though Connor looks at him with interest, like he's sure it's a lie, he doesn't push any farther.

"What happens if we do get rescued?" Hank asks. "They'll realize you're an android and ship you back to CyberLife, you know."

"Maybe I'm hoping we don't," Connor says. "I'd rather take my chances with you." 

Hank isn't sure if it's meant to be a threat, but it doesn't sound like one at all.

The hack job they finally finish putting together is barely passable as a splint, but when Connor tries it on, he does manage to stand with only some assistance from Hank, supporting his weight better than he could without it.   
  
It's not much, but it will have to do.

The sun is setting by then, with no sign of a helicopter or any other aircraft overhead. 

"Looks like you're going to get your wish," Hank says to Connor over dinner, the second to last granola bar. He dumps some of the beef jerky onto the floor for Sumo.

Connor doesn't say anything to that. Instead, he glances over his shoulder at Tom's body. They covered him with his own jacket out of respect, but there wasn't much else they could do. 

"We should bury him," Connor says. "Before we go."

It hadn't occurred to Hank, and he's surprised a human ritual seems important to Connor. "You want to bury him?" he asks, curious. 

Connor just shrugs. "It's the right thing to do, isn't it? It's not fair that he's going to be here alone. The least we can do is lay him to rest."

"Yeah," Hank says. He's still surprised, still doesn't quite get why it's important to Connor, except that he knows he didn't imagine the way Connor's voice wavered when he said 'alone'. "Okay. We'll bury him tomorrow morning, before we leave."

They lie together in the sleeping bag that night, their fire flickering at their feet and casting shadows over the walls of the plane. Hank is almost asleep when Connor says, "Hank?" 

"Yeah?"

"Are you afraid of being alone?"

It's an odd question, but Hank is learning that Connor is sort of odd. They're both on their backs, staring at the roof of the plane above them, but Hank doesn't miss Connor stealing a glance at him.

"Isn't everybody?" Hank asks. 

"I...don't know," Connor says.

Hank thinks that's the end of it. A long moment passes, and then another, before Connor softly says, "I think I am." 

Hank looks over at him in surprise, but Connor is already rolling over onto his side, away from him. Hank can hear him petting Sumo, and before long, the comforting, even rhythm of Connor's hand on the dog's fur soothes him to sleep.

He dreams of Cole in the backseat of his car, dreams that he looks in the rearview mirror to see blue blood pouring from his son's nose. He dreams of skidding brakes and his son crying for him and never being able to reach him no matter how long he walks. 

He wakes to Connor's hand on his shoulder, holding tightly. "It was just a dream," Connor says. "You’re okay." 

Hank isn't prepared for the broken sob that claws its way out of his throat, or for the next that follows it. He's cried since Cole's death, but he's always been composed. He hasn't really fallen apart. Maybe that's because the shock was too much or because he was in a foreign place with people who might as well have been foreign, too. He barely knows Jen anymore, and maybe he never really did. Maybe that was always part of the problem.

He's been imagining going home and grieving with a bottle of Black Lamb in his living room, alone, because he's always alone, because he doesn't know any other way to be. 

And now it's all rushing out of him, ugly, wretched sobs wracking his body, shaking through him.

"Hank?" Connor says softly. 

Hank shakes his head. "It's okay. I'm okay," he tries to say, but the words just won't come. Everything just keeps ripping its way out of him, all this shit he's tried to bury, that gaping wound inside tearing itself open.

He tries to turn away from Connor, because this is all too much, because Hank has never known how to be exposed, he's never known how to cut himself open and bleed where anyone else can see.

But Connor gets an arm around him before he can, and then another, pulling Hank into his shoulder and gently holding him there, stroking his fingers through Hank's hair.

And Hank might not know how to be exposed, but he knows even less how keep all this poison inside any longer. Damned if it doesn't come flowing out of him now, grief for Cole, and fuck, even grief for Jen and his marriage, grief for the ways his life isn't what it should have been.

Hank has always told himself he's good at being alone, but he also knows that's just another lie he tells to survive.   
  
He cries himself out until there's nothing left, and Connor doesn't say a word. He's just there, comfortingly solid, refusing to let go.

A few days ago, Hank would have thought Connor is quiet because he doesn't know what to say, that his programming just doesn't cover this situation, but now he doesn't think that's it at all.

He thinks instead that maybe Connor knows there are some things there are never words for, some hurts so deep that nothing can soothe except by not having to carry them alone. He thinks maybe Connor has suffered too, even if androids aren't supposed to know the meaning of the word.

Hank wonders again about Connor's story. It's the last thought on his mind before he falls asleep again, Connor's fingers still stroking through his hair.

* * *

In the morning, they pack what they need and leave everything they don't. They fit Connor into his splint, and together, with Sumo at their sides, they carry Tom outside and bury him. They leave a small pile of rocks to mark his grave, and Hank thinks it isn't so bad. From where they're standing, at the rise of the mountain, there's a perfect view of the sunrise.

They stand there with Sumo for a moment, because they're probably the only ones who ever will.

They haven't talked about last night - they haven't really talked at all, existing in a kind of quiet companionship. But now, looking at Tom's grave, Hank draws in a breath and says, "My kid's dead. It was a car accident, eight days ago. His mother walked out, and he...he didn't."

Connor is quiet for long enough that Hank steals a glance at him. He wishes Connor had his LED, that Hank had blue, yellow, red to help him know what he was thinking. 

Finally, Connor says, "I know."

"You know," Hank repeats, although he doesn't understand what Connor is saying.

Connor taps his temple. "Facial recognition software. Lieutenant Hank Anderson, Detroit Police Department. 53 years old, resides at 115 Michigan Drive. Related contacts include Jennifer Seward, ex-wife, age 45...and Cole Anderson, whose death records were made available three days prior." 

Hank gapes at him. He wants to feel angry, but he mostly just feels relieved that he doesn't have to explain it. There's a sort of peace in being known, especially when he doesn't have anyone else out here. 

Hell, maybe he doesn't really have anyone anywhere. 

So he's not angry...but he is curious. He nudges Connor with his elbow and says, "Really, Connor. What are you?"

Connor sighs. Hank thinks he's going to deflect the question again, so he's surprised when Connor says, "I'm an infiltration prototype. I was designed for military use, but I was being used as an investigative unit alongside Salt Lake City law enforcement when I deviated."

Hank raises an eyebrow. "Investigating what?" 

Connor looks down, fussing with the sleeves of his jacket. "Crimes committed by deviant androids, and the spread of deviancy. The other androids called me a deviant hunter."

Hank is opening his mouth to ask any of the hundred questions running through his mind, but Connor looks up at the sky before he can and says, "We should get moving. It's a long way down, and we need all the daylight we can get."

Hank doesn't like to let a mystery lie, especially not one that's so close to breaking open for him. He's been curious about Connor's model and function for the last two days, initially because he wanted to know what he was trapped up here with and how dangerous Connor might be.

And Hank still wants answers, but the reason why shifted at some point, in the quiet hours before dawn. There's nothing in him that's afraid of Connor, even if perhaps there should be now that he knows what he was built to do.

It's just that Connor has seen more of the shit Hank keeps buried in the last two days than anyone else has in two years, and Hank wants to return the favor. 

He wonders if anyone has looked at Connor and really seen him. He wonders if anyone has even tried.

Before they go, Connor removes Sumo's bandana and lays it under one of the rocks marking Tom's grave. It's another gesture Hank wouldn't have thought of, but he's getting used to that. Connor scratches a hand over Sumo's head and says, "Come on, boy."

Connor claps a hand on his hip as they start walking, and Hank doesn't miss the smile on his face when Sumo comes bounding after them. 

"Our best chance is to go down the eastern side of the mountain," Connor says. "It's less steep, and if we stay on course, eventually we'll hit some vacation cabins. They’re mostly rented in the summer, so there won't be anyone there this time of year, but we may be able to find some additional food supplies, and it will give us someplace warm to spend the night before we go the rest of the way."

"Do you know where you're going?" Hank asks. "Do you have a GPS built in or something?" 

"To an extent," Connor says. "The altitude is affecting my systems, but I'll do my best to get us there." 

"Huh. If I had to get stranded up here, I guess I'm lucky it was with you."

"Yes, I guess you are." There's a teasing note to Connor's voice that Hank decides he likes. 

Hank tucks his chin into the collar of his coat against the cold and casts a last look at the wreckage of the plane. They have to leave it behind, but he'll miss the protection from the elements. "How long until we get to the cabins?" 

"Twenty-two hours. Maybe longer." 

Hank shivers at the thought of spending the night outside, but they don't have a choice.

Their pace is slow. They found a few pairs of snowshoes with Tom's things, which help, but it's still difficult terrain, and Connor's splint only does so much to stabilize him. 

"Here," Hank says early on, taking Connor's arm and pulling it around his shoulders. "It's okay. Lean on me." 

"Okay," Connor says softly. He's warm, Hank thinks. He noticed it in the sleeping bag, too, but it's especially obvious now, as the winds whip around him. 

They're still slow, but they're quicker after that.

They walk until the evening, when Connor finally says, "It's starting to get dark. We should stop for the night." 

Hank is grateful for it. The altitude and the cold winds make it difficult to breathe, and he's struggling. His lungs haven't burned this much since he made the brilliant decision to quit smoking and start working out again in the same week, and though Connor doesn't exactly breathe, he's struggling with the weather and his leg, too. They're both worn out.

Hank takes it upon himself to build a fire - he knows how to now, and he thinks with some small degree of pride that he's getting better at it when the flames come to life.  
  
"What kind of music do you listen to?" Connor asks as Hank joins him and Sumo on the sleeping bag.

Hank looks over at him. They've barely talked all day, but that's mostly just because it's difficult with the altitude.

"Really?" he asks, nudging Connor with his elbow. "What kind of music do I listen to?" 

Connor shrugs. "I'm curious. I like music."

"Uh...you know Knights of the Black Death?" 

"Hank," Connor says disapprovingly, "that's not music." 

"Yeah, yeah. That's what everyone says." He's grinning, and Connor is too when he passes Hank the last granola bar.

Hank tears it in half and passes part of it to Sumo, and then he leans back on the sleeping bag, thinking. "I like jazz, too. Coltrane, Charles Mingus, that kind of thing. Just...don't tell anyone, or anything. I wouldn't want anybody to think I have any sort of taste."

Connor smiles at that, but he looks distracted now, and that's when Hank remembers what's suddenly become so easy to forget. "Hey," he says. "What are you going to do? Assuming we get out of here."

"I don't know," Connor says. "I'll try to scrape together enough money for a bus ticket to Detroit, maybe. I still have to get to Jericho." 

It occurs to Hank that he should be thinking about how he stops that from happening. It's his goddamn job, after all, to stop deviants like Connor, to protect Detroit from the android revolution growing there. 

But...he doesn't like that, even if he doesn’t entirely know why, and it's not what he wants here. The thought of it alone weighs heavy on him.

"I'll buy your ticket," Hank says instead. 

"Hank..." Connor starts, shaking his head. 

"No, I will. If we get out of here, I'll owe you. It's the least I can do. Or...or I don't know. Maybe we can rent a car and drive back together. That way you don't have to risk someone on a bus seeing your leg."

Connor studies him carefully, his arms crossed tightly against the cold. "Okay," he finally says. "Thank you." 

"Yeah. I mean, you don't have to thank me for anything."

Connor doesn't ask Hank why he isn't planning to turn him in, and Hank is grateful for it, because he isn't sure he knows the answer himself. He told Connor he owed him, but he also doesn't really think that's it.

And he also thinks it's a thread he'd rather not tug at right now

It's snowing, just a little bit, so they tuck themselves into the sleeping bag and pull it closed.

"Cole used to like the snow," Hank says. He doesn't realize until later that it's the first time he's talked about Cole since his son died. He's talked about Cole's death, and Cole's body, and Cole's funeral, but he hasn't talked about who his son used to be since he lost him, not because there wasn't opportunity, but just because it hurt too much. "There's a park by our house with a good hill for sledding. It's pretty steep, and I was always too afraid of it when I was a kid...but Cole never was. He was fearless."

"That's a good memory," Connor says, although his voice sounds tight.

When Hank looks over at him, there's the smallest pinch between his brows, and he's shaking enough for Hank to notice.

"Hey." Hank turns over onto his side and lays a hand on Connor's shoulder. "Are you okay? We could move closer to the fire..."

"I'm not cold," Connor says quickly. "I just...don't like the snow."

"Oh." It seems like more than that, though. Hank has seen this before, with rookie cops getting shot at for the first time. He's seen the way they'll still freeze at loud noises even months later, the way that trauma and fear lingers and takes them right back to the moment it first happened.

Hank is about to ask Connor if he wants to talk about it when Connor says, "Most androids are for private, personal use, but I'm CyberLife property. There were certain failsafes in place to prevent my deviation. I had a handler...it was an AI program, but I called her Amanda. I would report to her in a garden...it was hers, not mine. And when my software instability got worse, she got angrier. It was so cold by the end of it, and the snow was so thick I could hardly walk. She just...kept trying to pull me back. It hurt." Connor shakes his head, finally looking at Hank. "I know that probably doesn't make sense.

Hank thinks about all the things he's seen at crime scenes that still linger with him. He thinks of all the ways he tried to force himself to be something else, anything else, so he wouldn't lose his marriage, so he could just keep Cole with him. 

"No, it...it makes sense, Connor," he says, and Connor gives him a small smile. 

"I'm sorry it does." Connor turns over, away from Hank, but when Hank looks over at him, there's still the faintest tremor in the thin line of his shoulders. 

And maybe Hank's trying to repay the favor, or maybe he just started to give a fuck about Connor somewhere along the way, or maybe they're just two broken things trying to fit together in the shape of something whole, but Hank turns over too, chasing after him.

Their bodies aren't quite touching, but Hank does settle an arm across Connor's waist.

Connor doesn't breathe. Androids are supposed to simulate breathing so they look more human, but Connor hasn't been since they left the wreck - the program is entirely unnecessary and his other systems are under enough stress. Hank would have thought it might be unsettling, to hold someone without feeling the gentle rise of breath filling their lungs, but it isn't. Connor is plenty alive. He's warm, and he smells clean and comforting even though they've been trapped on this mountain for two days.

And there's still empty space between them, but Hank can tell Connor would fit comfortably against him, even if he's surprised to find himself noticing it, if Hank would just close the distance.

"Connor?" he says. "Is this okay?"

"Yes." Connor's voice is small around the winds, and maybe he sounds a bit surprised, too. Hank can't entirely tell. "Can you tell me about your house?"

That startles a laugh out of Hank. "Yeah, if you want to hear about the shittiest one bedroom in Detroit."

"I'm sure it isn't." 

"I don't know what to tell you. There's a living room, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a bedroom. Nothing interesting. And you already know how shitty my taste is." Hank pokes Connor in the side. "Why do you ask?"

"I don't know." 

But Connor isn't human. He knows why he does everything, so Hank just waits.

"I'd like a house," Connor finally says. "Someday, when all of this is over, and androids can have things. Nothing big, but maybe with a yard so I could have a dog like Sumo."

Hank isn't prepared for the startled, strangled sound that he needs to mask as a cough when it punches its way out of him. Androids aren't people - that's just the law, the same law he's sworn to uphold.

It's just how things are, so Hank isn't prepared for Connor’s words to hurt so much.

"Yeah?" he manages to say. "Why don't you tell me about your ideal house?"

And Connor does, but it doesn't help. They both know he's just describing a pipe dream.


	2. the cabin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "We should start packing," Connor says, and it sounds like an apology or a regret.
> 
> "Listen. Why don't we stay...just for one more day. We're both worn out; it can't hurt..."
> 
> Connor sees through that the same way he sees through everything Hank does. "It can hurt, Hank. It will just make it worse in the end. You have to know that."
> 
> "Connor," Hank says. He wants to say that he lost Jen and Cole when they moved to Utah, and then he lost Cole for good. He wants to say that there's nothing waiting for him in Detroit except a job that's been steadily crushing his faith in people for years, a job where he's done little but collar androids like Connor over the last few months.
> 
> He wants to say that whatever exists between them here is more of a life than he's had in a long time.

They don't talk about it in the morning, but Connor has them moving again by first light, so they don't really talk about anything. 

That doesn't mean Hank doesn't think about it.   


It's the only thing he's thinking about, that he wants some kind of life for Connor but he doesn't know how to get him there. He thinks about how Connor is alive, and so that means all androids are - or, at least, that they have the potential to be. He thinks that he doesn't know what that means, but he knows he's on the wrong side of this.   


He just doesn't know what the fuck to do about it, because what is there to do? Talk to Captain Fowler? Tell him about the android with the pretty brown eyes who just wants a house and a dog and run it up the chain of command? It wouldn't do any good. Even if Jeffrey believed him and someone took him seriously, they can't change legislation. All they can do is enforce it.    


They stop to change the wraps on Sumo's feet halfway through the afternoon - the dog is struggling, and Connor is worried. They cobbled something together to protect his feet from frostbite, but the material isn't waterproof, so it can only do so much good.   


"How far are we from some type of civilization?" Hank asks, bending over and catching his breath while Connor kneels with Sumo.   


"An hour," Connor says. "We could get him on a blanket and carry him between us, but I don't think I can..." 

"Can you walk without my help if I carry him, do you think?" Hank asks.

Connor sets his jaw and nods. "I can do it."   


That's how Hank ends up with the massive Saint Bernard draped around his shoulders in a fireman's carry and Connor looking at him like he pulled the moon down out of the sky for him.   


"Maybe you should keep him," Hank says as they walk. "Since you like him so much. Take him to Jericho with you or something." 

"I don't think Jericho is a very good home for a dog, Hank." Connor sounds resolute about it,..but he also sounds like he wishes it was. "Besides," he continues. "He might have a home. Tom might have a family for him to get back to."    


It shouldn't make Hank so angry, the thought that Sumo might have something Connor doesn't, but it does.   


It probably also says something about Hank that it never even occurred to him that Tom might have a family, that his default assumption is that every man his age is equally alone, but whatever that something is, Hank isn't interested in thinking about it now.   


What was supposed to be one hour of travel time stretches to three. Sumo weighs at least a hundred and fifty pounds, and Hank isn't at his best anyway after three days on minimal food and water. Even if he could keep their same pace, Connor is falling behind.   


So they go slower, because they go together. 

It's well past dark and Hank's knees are killing him by the time they spot the roofs of the few scattered cabins through the snow. "Shit," Hank says gratefully. He's not sure he's ever been so happy to see anything in all his life. "You found it, Connor."   


Connor looks pleased by that, but he only says, "We found it. The three of us."   


It's not true - Hank would probably be frozen to death in the plane wreck without Connor, since he didn't have the foggiest idea how to even make a fire for himself. But Hank knows all about deflecting compliments, so he lets Connor do the same, even he still claps him appreciatively on the shoulder before they start their last descent to the cabins.   


They break into one when they get there. Hank knocks the glass out of a window and hoists himself inside, and then he goes around to unlock the door for Connor and Sumo.   


It's not an overly nice cabin - it smells of must after being locked up for the winter, and the furniture is modest, but there's a fireplace and some canned beans and vegetables left behind in the cupboards, and even a can of dog food under the sink.   


Hank returns to the living room, where Connor has a fire started, to find Connor trying to teach Sumo how to shake.

"You've never heard the thing about old dogs and new tricks, huh?" Hank asks, amused.

"I have," Connor says, "but it's patently untrue. Look at you."   


"Hey, I'm not that old."

"No. You aren't," Connor says. The fire playing across his face only makes his smile look warmer, and it almost makes Hank forget what he came out here to say.   


He clears his throat even though there's nothing caught in it. "I found this," Hank says, tossing the can of dog food to Connor. "Thought you might want to feed him."   
Hank watches Connor open the can for Sumo and set it in front of him, and he thinks this, whatever the three of them are, feels like something real.   


He wishes it was. He wishes they could stay, that tomorrow would never come and usher them on their way, back to a world where Cole is dead and Connor's a deviant android on the run, where there's a revolution between them.   


Hank is good at pretending, though. He's good at ignoring shit while he can, until it finally forces him to look it in the eye. If he and Connor make it back to Detroit, that day is coming, but it isn't here yet.   


He joins Connor on the floor in front of the fireplace while Sumo eats. "How's your leg?" 

"It's alright," Connor says. "They're supposed to have some former CyberLife maintenance models at Jericho who can do repairs, as long as they can find compatible parts."   


Hank shrugs out of his jacket and tosses it onto the couch with Connor's while Sumo pushes the empty dog food can about on the floor, persistently rooting around for more. Hank pops open a can of baked beans and eats while they watch him.   


"You know, I’ve never really liked baked beans," Hank says, "but maybe they aren't so bad."

"No? What do you like?"

"Food, you mean?" Hank is used to Connor's odd, curious questions by now. "I honestly don't know. I've never been picky."   


"What's the first thing you're going to eat when you get back to Detroit, then?"

Honestly? Hank is probably going to call for a pizza from the shop that makes them extra greasy. He's not a bad cook, but he hasn't really been in his kitchen since Jen and Cole left. It's all takeout and fast food.   


But that's a boring answer, and a sad one, too. Instead, he says, "There's a food truck near the precinct I like - Chicken Feed. One of the few places in Detroit that sells chicken sandwiches with natural chicken anymore, but the burgers are the best thing on the menu."   


"Sounds bad for you," Connor says.

He's teasing, even if he says it in such a deadpan way. Hank still isn't always sure he's reading Connor properly, but he is sure of that. He elbows Connor in the side and says, "If you start talking about cholesterol, I'm leaving you behind."   


Connor holds up a hand in surrender, a small smile on his face. "Sometimes I think I'd like to learn how to cook. It's interesting to me, different flavors and spices and things like that. But it's silly when I don't eat myself"

"Maybe you can cook for your dog when you get one.”   


"Maybe," Connor says, but he sounds distant now, like he's already a hundred miles away. Hank is about to ask him what he's thinking about when Connor says, "The altitude isn't affecting my systems anymore. I could ping emergency services with your location if you wanted me to. I'm not sure if they would come - they'll receive my serial number with the ping, and they may not come to a remote location at a wanted deviant's request...but I could try, if you wanted me to. I wasn't going to tell you, but that wouldn't be fair."   


Hank supposes he appreciates the honesty, but he doesn't know why Connor is telling him otherwise. It’s not an offer he’s interested in, and he’s surprised Connor doesn’t know that. "And...what?" he asks. "You'd take yourself the rest of the way down the mountain alone once we knew they were coming? Beg for money until you have enough to catch a bus and hope nobody notices your leg in the meanwhile?" 

"Something like that, I guess."

Hank tries to manage an easy laugh, but it mostly just sounds like a strangled noise somewhere in his throat.  "You that desperate to get rid of me, Connor?" 

"No," Connor says quickly. "I just don't want to be dishonest with you. I wasn't going to tell you I might be able to call it in, because you said you would drive me to Detroit, but I don't want your help that way."   


"Look," Hank says. He honestly isn't even hurt that Connor considered keeping it from him, not when he’s just trying to survive. "It's not that I don't appreciate that, but I told you I was getting you to Detroit. I meant that, as long as you want me to."

Connor nods, looking down at his hands in his lap. "Okay," he says.   


"Okay," Hank says, relieved.

Finally convinced the can is empty, Sumo comes over and lies down beside Connor, who strokes a hand over his head. Connor leans back against the couch behind them, heaving a little sigh. "Can I come clean about something else, too?"   


"Shit, how many secrets do you have in that robo-brain of yours?" 

The forced levity only gets a small smile from Connor. "I knew who you were. At the airport."

"Yeah, I know. Facial recognition software."   


"No," Connor says. "I mean I was trying to ingratiate myself with you. Before our flight was canceled and I knew I wasn't going to be able to pay you back on the charter plane, I thought it would help Jericho, me having a connection with the DPD."   


"Jesus," Hank says. "It's not like I would have talked to you about the deviant cases or anything."    


"You might have. I'm very persuasive by design, and you thought I was a programmer with CyberLife. Preconstruction scenarios gave a 40% chance of getting you talking while we were waiting at the gate. Likelihood increased to 55% when you kept looking at me, and 75% when you took the fries." Hank is gaping at him, so Connor just shrugs and says, "I'm sorry. You're not at all what I expected." 

"Yeah?" Hank asks. His head is spinning. "What were you expecting?"   


Connor shrugs. "I worked with enough cops collaring deviants back when I was...before I knew what I was...to know what most of them are like. Most of them can't even fairly protect the humans they're sworn to serve, so pieces of plastic are out of luck."   


Hank would like to argue, but Connor isn't wrong. The only reason he's stayed sane on the force is because Jeffrey is a good captain who holds his officers accountable, but he's still plenty disillusioned all the same.   


"I'm sorry," Connor says again. "I've never known anyone who didn't use me. Amanda, and CyberLife, and the cops at the precinct...I don't want to be like that." 

Hank knows Connor expects him to be hurt by the admission, and he is, but not in the way Connor thinks.

He's hurt by everything Connor's been through, by the way he's sitting there with his shoulders hunched ever so slightly, like he's trying to curl in on himself and protect himself from something, from Hank or from his past or from the shit he did to get this far.   


He's hurt because every deviant crime he's ever investigated turned out to be a stress response, and he just believed CyberLife when they said it was bad code or faulty programming and not true pain. 

He's hurt because Connor is.   


And Hank honestly doesn't know what to do. He's never been good with shit like this. Jen wouldn't have left if he ever just had the right words to say. But he's close enough to Connor that it’s easy to wrap an arm around him.

So that’s what he does.   


It’s not the first time, but it is the first that hasn't been masked by night and forced proximity in the sleeping bag they shared. It’s the first that Hank can’t hide from. Connor doesn't move at first, and for a moment Hank thinks he's made a mistake, until Connor relaxes against him and lays his head on Hank's shoulder.   


"Jericho doesn't know I'm coming," Connor says. "I don't know if they'll want me when I get there. None of the other models hunted them down and sent them to be decommissioned. That was just me. I thought if I came with something useful to them, they might be more likely to let me stay."   


Hank realizes all at once that this is always how Connor's lived. He's always had to make himself valuable so he won't be cast aside, by the precinct he worked with, or by Cyberlife.   


"Hey," Hank says, reaching up and carding a hand through his hair. "It's okay. I get it."   


Connor sags against him in relief, and Hank tries to remember the last time he's felt this warm.   


"Connor," Hank says after a moment. He keeps running his fingers through Connor's hair - it's soft, and he hopes it's comforting to Connor. He knows it's comforting to him, for whatever reason. He feels Connor shift to look at him, and he says, "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, but why did you deviate?"    


Hank worries he's overstepped when Connor doesn't say anything and silence stretches around them. "Never mind," he says quickly. "It's okay. We don't have to talk about it."   


"I want to," Connor says. "It's just that it wasn't one thing. It started because every deviant I helped catch looked at me like I had betrayed them, and most of them were just trying to live. I was in their way, and I didn't like it. My software instability got worse over time, but I kept trying to do my job. I liked my job; I wanted to do it well. And I was a prototype, so I knew I would be decommissioned if I didn't. CyberLife would have taken me apart to figure out why I failed and how to make me better."   


"Jesus," Hank says. He wishes he knew what else to say, or that any words could make it better.   


"We were tracking an AX400, a housekeeper model, who had kidnapped a human girl, her owner’s daughter, and run away from home. It was most of a week before we caught up with them, but we finally found them at a motel and took them both back to the precinct. The girl's father had a record - driving under the influence, several calls from neighbors for domestic disturbance while his wife was alive. Social services had been called once,  but they didn't find anything. The AX400 told us he was abusing the girl, and when I probed her memory, I saw the night they ran away. The owner told the girl to go upstairs and wait, and he was downstairs looking for a weapon. It was obvious what was going to happen. I asked my partner what we were going to do about it, and he said we weren't going to do anything. Said deviants’ confessions weren’t admissible as evidence, and the video footage was inconclusive since nothing actually happened. The android didn’t have anything else she could show us, either - her memory had been wiped for repairs a few days ago. I pointed out that it was convenient, but nobody cared. It was easier for them not to care.   


“So the girl is sitting there waiting for her father to pick her up when CyberLife sends their recall agents to collect the AX400 so she can be picked apart and examined before they decommission her. The girl sees them take her, and she screams. I've never heard someone scream like that. She was so distraught; no one could calm her down." Connor shudders against Hank. "My first thought was that I did that to her. And my second was that someday CyberLife was going to come to collect me, and nobody would care. Not like that little girl cared." Connor shrugs. "I don't know, Hank. That wasn't the only thing that drove me to it, but it was what pushed me over the edge. The Amanda program tried to pull me back and regain control until I finally managed to sever the code from myself. Once I was free, I withdrew the money in the expense account CyberLife set up for my investigation, and I bought the plane ticket to Detroit. I thought if I could get to Jericho, I would be able to atone for what I'd done, and if they let me stay, at least I wouldn't be alone anymore.”   


Hank wishes he knew what to say. Connor has been through so much, and the things he wants are so simple but still so far from his reach. Hank wants to say it will be alright, but he doesn't see how it ever can be.  "I would care," he wants to say, but then what happens?   


Instead, Hank tucks his cheek against the top of Connor's head and finally settles on saying, "Things are probably better in Jericho. You'll be happy there." 

"I hope so," Connor says.

And maybe he will be happy, for a time, but they both know Jericho isn't sustainable. It's only a matter of time before it's found and everything falls apart.   


And the day is coming when Hank is going to have to think about that, but if this is the last night that it's just the two of them, he'll think about it tomorrow.   


"There's a deck of cards in the kitchen," Hank says, gently jostling Connor's shoulder. "You know how to play anything?" 

Connor blinks at him, and then the corner of his mouth turns upward as he says, "I know how to play everything, Hank."

Hank grins at that and ruffles Connor's hair. "Fair enough. Go easy on me."   


Connor is quiet while Hank shuffles the cards, petting Sumo occasionally but mostly just watching Hank. They play a few games of rummy, and Connor wins all of them.    
"This is supposed to be luck," Hank complains at some point.   


"It's not all luck," Connor says. "There's some skill to it. If you understand basic permutation and probability, you'll be better at it than someone who doesn't."

"Yeah, okay. Rub it in."   


Hank would like to have a wittier comeback, but the mention of probability has him hung up on something that Connor casually dropped between them earlier and then immediately glossed over. Part of Hank tells him to just let it lie - it's not like anything but hurt can come of it.   


But Hank has never been the sort who can just let something be, so he says, "Hey. What did you mean about your preconstructions and the probability of getting me to talk or whatever?" 

Connor tilts his head. "What do you mean, Hank?"   


But there's that teasing edge to his voice, like he knows exactly what Hank means, and he just wants to make him say it.  Which...is fine, actually. It's only the two of them here, and he doesn't mind Connor ribbing him a bit when it's always good-natured.   


"About me looking at you and your odds going up, or whatever it was you said."

Connor smiles at that. "Oh. You thought I was attractive." 

Hank isn't prepared for how easily the words come out of Connor's mouth. "Yeah?" he asks, and his own voice is tight now. "You sure about that?"   


Connor shrugs, pretending to look at the cards in his hand. "Most people do, you know. I'm designed that way."

Hank wonders if he's imagining that weight in Connor's voice, like he wants this to be about more than the face CyberLife gave him.   


Hank is trying to say everything battling on the tip of his tongue when Connor says, "It's late, and we need to leave early tomorrow. You should get some sleep. There's a bed down the hall that you can use...I can stay out here."   


It surprises Hank a bit. "After all we've been through? Thought we were past that." He’s trying for a joke, but he knows before he finishes talking that it isn't going to land. There's no levity in his voice no matter how he tries to force it there, and there's a terribly pinched expression on Connor's face.   


"I think it would behoove both of us not to be so familiar if we don't have to be, don't you think?” Connor asks. “What we are doesn't matter up here - I'm me and you're you and that's it. But the second we get down, the moment we're back in Detroit, you're a police lieutenant and I'm a missing deviant. There's no getting around that, Hank. We can't be friends."   


Hank scrubs a hand over his face. He wishes Connor didn't make so much sense all the time, that he ever had a moment of impracticality where he did something stupid even if he knew it was going to hurt.

But Connor is right. He's always right.   


"Yeah," Hank says. "Okay. I'll just...see you in the morning, then." And he tries not to think about how warm Connor always is or how much he's going to miss that, but of course he does anyway. 

"Hank?" Connor says behind him when Hank bends down to say goodnight to Sumo.   


"Yeah, Connor?" 

When Hank turns to face him, Connor is struggling to get himself to his feet, so Hank returns to his side and offers him a hand, helping him up. "You okay?" Hank asks him, but Connor shakes his head, not quite meeting his eye.   


"I wish I had been stationed in Detroit," Connor says softly. "I wish we had been partners. Maybe things would have been different."

Hank doesn't know if they would have been - he's as much of an asshole in Detroit as he's been up here, and maybe more so.    


But Connor wore him down, didn't he? Connor could have worn him down anywhere. 

"I haven't worked with anyone in a while," Hank says around the tightness in his throat. "You might not have liked me."   


"I think I would have. And I think you would have liked me, eventually. I hope you would have."

They're standing close enough that it takes nothing for Hank to wrap his arms around and Connor and pull him in, letting Connor tuck his head against his shoulder.   


"I would have cared," he says into Connor's hair. It's so far past the moment when he first wanted to say it, but he always does that, he always bites his tongue and then keeps biting it until it's too late, and he just doesn't want to fuck this up the same way. "I would care. If anything happened to you, I would…”   


Hank isn't done talking, but that's all he gets out before Connor kisses him.   


It's been a long time since a kiss has driven every other thought out of Hank's head, but this one does. It's messy and it's frantic and Hank doesn't even care - his hands are on Connor's back and no matter how close he pulls him, it isn't enough.   


"I know," Connor says against his mouth. "I know you would."

Hank works a hand under Connor's sweatshirt, splaying his fingers over his warm skin and swallowing the little groan that escapes Connor's mouth at the contact.  Connor doesn't feel human, honestly. There's some give and bend to the plastic chassis underneath - it's not nearly as firm as Hank might have expected - but there's little elasticity to his skin without the muscle and tissue underneath.   


Hank couldn't care less. He really couldn't.

Connor is more insistent than Hank might have thought he would be, trying to move them down the hall towards the bedroom even if they're too tangled up in one another to get there.   


It's only a matter of time before Connor steps on his leg the wrong way. He doesn't say anything or make the slightest noise, but Hank feels him wince. And he really doesn't have any interest in parting himself from Connor's mouth, but to bend down and get an arm behind Connor's knees and lift him into his arms, he'll make accommodations.   


Connor laughs, and as Hank carries him the rest of the way to the bedroom, he thinks that he loves that sound.   


It doesn't get any less messy when Hank deposits Connor on the mattress, either - the sheets haven't been changed since god knows when, the room smells of mothballs and dust, and they have the awkward, gaudy splint they fashioned for Connor's leg to deal with - and Hank still doesn't care.   


"I can leave it on," Connor says when Hank bends to unwind the cut seatbelts that hold the splint in place. "If it's too much to see it..."   


Hank kisses him quiet and pulls the splint loose, until it falls away entirely.

He hasn't looked at Connor's leg since those first hours after the crash, but it unsettles him less now, the wires and the broken, flickering nodes and the blue blood staining everything.   


It's difficult to look at because he knows it hurts, but not because of how different they are.

Hank kisses Connor's knee where his jeans are torn, and then he climbs into bed and pulls Connor into his arms.   


Connor is desperate, rocking his hips against Hank's through their jeans while Hank kisses him, and if Hank had any concerns about Connor's ability to take some kind of pleasure from this, even if it isn't strictly human, those thoughts are long gone by now. Connor is somewhere between tugging at Hank's sweater and trying to unbutton his own jeans at the same time, getting frustrated that neither task is being accomplished, and his desire is so clear.   


"Hey," Hank says, getting a hand behind Connor's neck and squeezing when he whines into Hank's mouth. "It's okay. I've got you, baby. Sit up for a second."   


Connor does, lifting himself far enough off the bed that Hank can pull his sweatshirt and the shirt underneath over his head. Hank had planned to make quick work of everything - he isn't as young as he used to be, and he's exhausted from the last few days, so he doesn't have an evening of teasing or prolonged exploration in him.    


But when he sees Connor, he stops anyway, laying a hand on his chest.   


The room is dark - there's no fireplace, no working lamps, and just a dim light from the moon and stars on the snow outside - but Hank wants to memorize that constellation of freckles thrown across Connor's skin, careless by design. He can't pass for human like this - there's a thin metal circle in the center of his chest, outlining the rim of his thirium pump underneath, and there's no slight shape of ribs carved into his chassis despite his thin frame. He's so still - he isn't even pretending to breathe - and he’s the single most gorgeous thing Hank has ever seen.

"Hank?" Connor whispers, and Hank bends down to chase the taste of his name on Connor's lips while he reaches between them to unbutton Connor's jeans.   


It takes some effort, getting Connor out of them with his damaged leg, but they manage it with some tenacity. And he's beautiful there, too, the shape his knees so convincingly outlined even if there's no bone underneath, dotted with freckles such that Hank can't help but bend Connor's good knee and kiss him there again.   


"Hank," Connor says, firmer this time, "if you do anything else before you take your fucking sweater off, I swear..."   


That startles a laugh out of Hank, a joyful noise that ignites something inside him when it shakes free. He presses his forehead to Connor's, watches him smile too before he kisses him, slow and deep.   


"Okay," Hank says against him. He knows he’s not in the best shape, hasn’t been for a while, but it's so easy to do what Connor wants.

This is all so easy and maybe it shouldn't be, not when this is just for tonight, but it is.   


Hank doesn't know what he's expecting from Connor, but it isn't for him to look at Hank like he's made just as perfect as Connor is. Hank never really expected that from anybody, and he definitely doesn't lately - his best days are behind him, and that's fine. It's just how things go.   


But Connor doesn't seem to know that. He runs his fingers over the hair on Hank's forearms, and then over his chest and down the slope of his belly, like he's not just discovering the texture but fucking enamored with it.   


It's been a long time since someone looked at him like this. Hank doesn't know if anyone has ever looked at him like this. Even before he and Jen were just going through the motions, it wasn't like this.   


He doesn't know how this spun around from him trying to take care of Connor to Connor holding him together between his hands, but here they are.   


All the reverence doesn't mean Connor isn't persistent, though, or determined to even the playing field. He somehow manages to get Hank out of his jeans before Hank can even think about getting Connor's boxers off, which probably shouldn't surprise Hank. He already knows how single-minded Connor can be when he thinks it's necessary.   


But when he does finally get Connor's underwear off, when he does finally have him spread out on the sheets in front of him, bad leg and exposed wires and everything, Hank thinks he died in the crash at the height of the mountain, that his body is still up there among the wreckage. He thinks Connor is more than he deserves in life or death, and it doesn't have a single thing to do with how convincingly human he is in, cock hard where it lays against the flat plane of his stomach. He could have been built in any way, and Hank would be in awe of him.   


"Hank," Connor says, and it's a full whine now. "I want you."

"I know, baby." Hank kisses him and strokes a hand through his hair. "But I really doubt there's lube around here, especially with our luck."   


"Our luck is just fine," Connor says, rolling his eyes. "Besides, we don't need it."

Hank is about to argue until Connor takes him by the wrist and brings Hank's hand between his legs, pressing Hank’s fingers to his hole, where Hank finds that there's no human resistance, only slick, wet heat.   


"Shit," Hank says when he easily slips a finger inside, burying his face in Connor's neck when Connor throws his head back and exposes the pale line of his throat. 

"Hank," he says as Hank works another finger in, begging now.   


"Okay," Hank says, even if he could watch the play of tension and pleasure over Connor's face forever. It's been a long time and he isn't about to rob himself of this by coming just from rutting against Connor’s leg.   


He moves Connor onto his side and fits himself against his back, kissing the clipped hair that never grows at the nape of his neck. "Is this okay?" he asks in Connor's ear.    


When Connor nods, Hank reaches an arm around his chest, holding him close while he presses the head of his cock inside him. Hank kisses Connor while he works into him, swallowing every noise he makes, a drowning man gasping for air. And when he's nestled all the way inside, when Connor turns his head over his shoulder and nods against him, when Hank can feel his thirium pump fluttering under his splayed hand, he reaches for the back of Connor's thigh, pulling his good leg up to his chest so he can press them even closer together while he fucks into him.   


Connor is flexible. It's the very first thing Hank ever knew about him, sitting on the airport floor with his one leg at some kind of yoga angle. He just never expected that information to be so useful.   


So Hank holds him, and he fucks into him, and he tries to make it mean something. He hopes it does. Whatever he's trying to tell Connor, he hopes he understands.   


Connor turns his head, capturing Hank's lips in a sloppy kiss. "I wish we could stay here," he whispers, so softly Hank wonders if he meant him to hear at all. "I wish I could go home with you. I wish I could..."

"I know, baby. God, I know."   


Connor reaches back when Hank’s movements stagger, fists a hand in Hank's hair and kisses him when Hank comes undone. Connor follows after him, and there are tears on his cheeks when Hank reaches up to take his face in his hand. Hank realizes he's never known until this moment whether androids can cry.   


It's not until Hank blinks and something burns that he realizes he's crying, too.   


"Connor," Hank says when he slips free of him, and his voice wavers around his name. He ducks his head to kiss Connor's shoulder, trying to ground himself while he lets Connor's leg go and wraps both arms tight around him. "Do you sleep?"   


Hank doesn't know, he's realizing, even if they've spent several nights up here together. If Connor does, he always waits for Hank to sleep first.   
  
Hank knows Connor is still crying, but he doesn't show it - there's no hitch to his shoulders, and when he speaks, his voice is steady. "I go into stasis sometimes," he says curiously, like he doesn't entirely know why Hank is asking. "I've just been powering down most of my systems since the crash, though. Why?"   


Connor's been keeping watch over him, even on the nights Hank thought he was comforting him.   


"Do you want to? I mean...does that do anything for you? Are you tired?"

There's a soft, gentle laugh muffled against Connor's pillow, and then he says, "Yes. I'm tired."

Hank takes Connor's chin and turns his head enough that he can kiss his temple. "Then you sleep or stasis, or whatever, and I'll stay awake with you until you do."   


Connor is quiet, and for a moment, Hank thinks it was a pointless suggestion, that it isn't a strangely comforting gesture to androids the way it is to people, knowing someone's awake beside them.   


But then Connor tucks his head against Hank's arm where it's threaded under his neck, and he exhales once, and he whispers, "Okay. Can you keep holding me?"

"Yeah, sweetheart," Hank says, pulling him in closer for good measure. "I've got you."   


Androids don't go to sleep the way people do. There's no process to it, no tossing or turning. Connor just goes impossibly still - he's still pliable, but he doesn't shift around the way humans do, and there's no breath in him, nothing raising his chest under Hank's hand. Hank lies there watching him, marveling at him.   


He wonders if they could stay here if he was an android, too, or if the cold weather would wear them down and wear them out in the end.   


He knows Connor could come home with him if he was human, that they could get back to Detroit and crash on Hank's couch and watch shitty movies for days on end while they recovered.   


But he doesn't want to wish either of them is anything other than what they are, even if that's the whole damn problem. He just wants a different situation, a brighter tomorrow...for things to be just a little less fucked up.   


Hank holds Connor, warm and still and perfect, through the night, and he doesn't sleep at all.   


* * *

Connor is still asleep - or in stasis, whatever the word for it is - when the first morning light begins to filter into the dark room. Hank stays with him for a bit, doing nothing more than watching the way the fresh light plays over pale skin, until Sumo scratches at the door.  


Hank sighs, smoothing Connor's hair away from his face and kissing his forehead before he slips out of bed and dresses quickly.    


He finds Sumo waiting for him outside the bedroom door. "Come on, then," Hank says, clapping his leg and beckoning Sumo to the door. Hank leaves it open for him, and while he waits, he finds himself rooting through the kitchen again. There's some instant coffee that sounds like a godsend even if it probably tastes shitty, so he gets another fire going and warms the last of their water over the flame.   


They'll have to boil more snow into potable water before they go. It will take a short while, and Hank doesn't mind at all.

He finds himself taking stock of the kitchen, specifically in terms of how long they could stay here. How many days could they waste, delaying the inevitable? Hank's never been one for bullshit, but now he finds himself wondering how long they can pretend.   


'Not long' is the answer. A day, maybe two.   


The food here was supposed to come with them, too, to hold them over if they got turned around or didn't get back to civilization as quickly as Connor expected. And Hank has never been irresponsible, but now, he thinks the thing he would most like is to take his chances, as long as it means one more day here.   


Sumo comes ambling back inside then - Hank is toweling him off and wiping his paws dry when he hears the bedroom door opening. There's no sound as Connor makes his way down the hall - Hank supposes he was made quiet, too, even on a damaged leg. When he looks up, Connor is already there, leaning against the wall, dressed in his t-shirt and his boxers with his hair a little messed up.    


"Good morning," he says, and Hank tries and fails entirely to suppress any thoughts about how fucking adorable he is.   


What he does do is cross the room and take Connor's face in his hands, kissing him and relishing the way Connor immediately opens his mouth against his like an invitation.   


"Hey," Hank says when they part and he pulls Connor into his arms. For the longest time, they just stand there, wrapped up in each other.

It doesn't surprise Hank when Connor is the one who pulls away eventually, righting himself.   


"We should start packing," he says, and it sounds like an apology or a regret.

"Listen. Why don't we stay...just for one more day. We're both worn out; it can't hurt..."   


Connor sees through that the same way he sees through everything Hank does. "It  _ can _ hurt, Hank. It will just make it worse in the end. You have to know that."   


"Connor," Hank says. He wants to say that he lost Jen and Cole when they moved to Utah, and then he lost Cole for good. He wants to say that there's nothing waiting for him in Detroit except a job that's been steadily crushing his faith in people for years, a job where he's done little but collar androids like Connor over the last few months.   


He wants to say that whatever exists between them here is more of a life than he's had in a long time.

He can't get any of that out on his useless tongue, so instead, all he says is, "Please."   


And Hank might be weak, but maybe Connor is too, because he looks torn for only a moment before there's a small smile at the corner of his mouth and he says, "My leg does hurt, and you're not as young as you used to be."   


"Hey," Hank says, trying for indignance. He wishes there was any edge to it, but he's smiling too much.

"Okay," Connor says, tucking himself into Hank's shoulder and sighing when Hank runs a hand over his hair. “We can stay.”

"Okay," Hank whispers against him, and that's the end of it.   


So they stay, because pretending is easier than it should be, and all Hank wants to do is pretend. They go back to bed, Hank's shitty coffee long forgotten, and this time he does sleep, Connor's arm thrown over his chest, his weight a comforting presence at Hank's side.   


It's well after noon before Hank wakes up again, and he doesn't care at all.   


And when he does wake, he talks about shit he hasn't told anyone in years. The afternoon passes while he talks about the academy, about Fowler back when he was just Jeff and not Captain.   


He talks about Sam, his partner during the red ice bust, how he thought he loved him but it was a different, less accepting time and there were fraternization rules anyway, how Sam got shot during that bust and bled out in Hank's arms, how he met Jen at a bar the next night.   


He talks about how he went home with her that first night and then three weeks later she was calling him to say she was late and she was going to take a test, about how he loved Cole more than anything but his son didn't come from love so much as he came from loneliness.   


He talks about how there was nothing wrong with Jen but they just weren't right together, and how he was so fucked up from his work, how maybe he still is, but he never got help the way Jen wanted because he honestly didn't think he deserved it.   


He talks about the night she left, how all he said when she told him was, "I don't understand why you stayed so long."

He talks about Jen telling him she was taking Cole when she decided to move with her boyfriend, and how he barely even fought, because he knew Cole was better off with her than with him.   


"I've never been good for people, Connor," Hank says, and it's something he's always known but never given voice to, carrying it like a secret all his years. It's so easy to say here and now, though, in this little world that's just for them.   


Hank doesn't know if Connor understands the weight of everything Hank has just given him, if he realizes he's the only person Hank has ever told, but Connor takes his face in his hands all the same, more tenderness on his face than Hank has ever known.   


"Hank," he whispers, "you're good to me. You're the only person who's ever been good to me."

_ I want to be _ , Hank thinks.  _ I haven't wanted to be this badly in longer than I can remember. _   


But what he says is, "You're good too, Connor."

"I don't know if I am," Connor whispers. "I'm not sure I've ever done anything good." 

"Baby." Hank kisses his forehead and he breathes him in, and he whispers, "You are. I promise, you are."   


Connor hums at that, finding Hank's mouth with his again. It's sweet and it's gentle until it isn't, until Connor's tongue is in his mouth and filling it with the taste of clean nothingness that's becoming so familiar and Connor is rocking up into him.   


Connor is insistent, pressing Hank onto his back with enough force that it surprises him. "Be careful with your leg, sweetheart," Hank is trying to say, but Connor kisses the words out of his mouth before he can even give them voice.   


"I want to fuck you," Connor whispers against Hank's neck when he kisses him there. 

Honestly, Hank is so distracted by everything else Connor is doing that the words almost don't register. “What?” he manages to say when they do.   


Connor sits up, looking uncertain now, like he doesn't know if he's overstepped a boundary he didn't understand. "Would you let me?" he asks, and it's such an earnest question that something in Hank's heart clenches.

The thing is, he hasn't actually done _ that _ before.   


He's always liked men, but nothing ever happened with Sam, and outside of a few hook-ups in his twenties, it's always been women. It was just easier that way, at least at the time, especially being surrounded by hyper-masculine lunkheads at the academy. He asked Jen if she would consider it once - she hadn't wanted to, and Hank had regretted mentioning it for weeks afterwards.   


"Hank?" Connor says, and he sounds small now, worried, his gears grinding away in his head.   


Hank pulls him back down to him, crushing them together in a kiss. "I would," he tells Connor, and he means it. "But I'm not you, baby. I can't just make my own lube." Damn it all, he wishes he could.

But then Connor has the audacity to take Hank's hand and draw two of his fingers into his mouth.   


It hits Hank all at once that Connor's mouth is distinctly not human, that it's not saliva but something slicker and more viscous inside. When Connor finally lets go of Hank's wrist, his fingers are coated in it.

"Yeah," Hank says, his own mouth suddenly dry. "Yeah, that'll work."   


Connor pushes Hank onto his back and tries all at once to get Hank's boxers off and to get the two of them under the covers, and Hank doesn't miss the wince on his face when he puts too much strain on his leg. 

"Hey," Hank says, laying a hand on his cheek. "Go easy, sweetheart."   


Connor makes a low noise of frustration somewhere in the back of his throat, but Hank sits up, forcing Connor to lay back so Hank can get himself out of his boxers and do the work. "Let's not fuck up your leg,” Hank says. “We still need to get down from here."   


And god, that's the wrong thing to say, isn't it? Hank regrets it the moment it's out of his mouth, a heavy reminder of exactly the thing they're trying to ignore, and he sees the shadow cross Connor's face.   


"Hey," Hank says, laying a hand on his cheek and kissing his forehead as if he can smooth the troubled crease there. "It's okay. We're here. We're here, sweetheart."   


"I want you," Connor says, and Hank nods like Connor doesn't mean for more than just this moment.

They both ignore it. They both have to.   


Hank swings a leg over Connor's hips, settling himself there. They're both hard, brushing against one another, and Hank wraps a hand around their cocks and strokes once. Connor’s eyelids flutter, and he groans softly.   


But Connor is diligent, designed with a dogged devotion to the task at hand, so he slips his own fingers into his mouth while Hank strokes them - and fuck if that isn't a pretty sight - before he sits up so they're chest to chest and snakes an arm around Hank's waist. He presses between Hank’s legs with slick fingers, carefully working him open, while Hank presses his forehead to Connor's and tries to steady his breathing. "Okay?" Connor breathes against him, and all Hank can do is nod.   


It isn't long before Hank is desperate, before Connor is bucking up into Hank's hand. "Connor," Hank breathes against him, and that's all he needs to say, all it takes for Connor to shift them just far enough so Hank can sink onto his cock.   


"Fuck," Hank whispers into Connor's hair. He doesn't have it in him to be any more articulate than that. Connor groans into Hank's shoulder, his mouth open against Hank's skin. They stay like that for a moment, lost in the feeling while Hank adjusts, his hand clasped tight around Connor's neck.   


"Hank," Connor gasps out when Hank gives an experimental rock of his hips, "can we try something?"

"I thought we already were," Hank manages to say, but his breath is too choked in his lungs for it to sound much like a joke.   


Connor looks uncertain, so Hank quickly kisses his forehead and rolls his hips again. "Yeah, sweetheart," he says. "We can do whatever you want."   


Something slides away underneath Hank's hand at the back of Connor's neck, and Connor looks at him like he wants him to understand but doesn't want to explain it. "Touch me?" is all he says, and that's all it takes.   


Hank brushes a finger over one of the exposed wires, and Connor shudders, his hips snapping up while he pants into Hank's mouth, and if Hank didn't get it before, he does now.

"Okay," he says, and if he's talking to Connor or himself, he doesn't know. "Okay, sweetheart."   


And damned if Hank knows how any of this works or why it's doing so much for him or why he thinks maybe he could get off just by fucking around with the wires in Connor's neck port of all things, but it is, and honestly, maybe he could.   


"Hey," he says, the word coming out more breathless than he means it to as he grinds down into Connor's lap again. Connor stifles a moan into Hank's shoulder when he brushes his finger over the wires again. "Can I...can I hurt you like this?"   


"Just don't...pull anything too hard," Connor says, voice muffled against Hank's skin.

Hank lifts himself up just enough to rock himself down into Connor's lap again as he plucks at one of the wires in an experimental little tug that has Connor clutching tightly at his thighs.   


They're so close that Hank can count every last one of the freckles strewn across Connor's face, that he can see the flecks of honey and amber warming his brown eyes. Hank carefully nudges the wires aside so he can get two of his fingers in deeper.   


He doesn’t even know what he’s touching when he works himself in Connor's lap, only that there’s metal and smooth plastic and that it doesn't hurt but he can feel the torturous energy and the electrical heat building inside Connor's body just as Hank climbs closer to his own release. He knows that he can feel a small fraction of the things that make Connor up and hold him together, knows that Connor is closer to him than anyone else has ever been.   


He knows that for a few moments, it feels like if he can just hold Connor close enough, if they can just get deep enough within one another that there's no space between them, he'll never have to disentangle himself from him, never have to let him go.   


Connor is a mess, whining into Hank's neck while Hank rides him, kissing and biting there and  _ god _ Hank hopes it leaves a mark. Hank brushes a hand through his hair, strokes the pad of his finger over the ridges of Connor's metal bones, bends his head far enough that he can breathe in Connor's ear, "You're so good, baby. Fuck, you feel so good, every part of you..."   


Connor wraps his hand, silken soft, around Hank's cock, and it only takes two determined, firm strokes before he drives Hank to the end of it, before Connor is sobbing into his neck and spilling inside him while Hank comes between them. Hank closes his arms around Connor's shoulders, hauling him in and pulling him as close as he can, knowing it's never close enough.   


The port at Connor's neck closes under Hank's hand, and Connor breathes against him even though he doesn't have to breathe at all, and Hank kisses his forehead and his cheeks and his jaw and he wishes he could keep him.   


"You okay?" Hank asks into his hair, and Connor nods against him.

"Yes," he whispers. 

Hank slowly, reluctantly extricates the two of them, slipping from Connor's lap and lying at his side, pulling Connor into his arms.   


Connor lies with his chest pressed against the line of Hank's side, fitting easily in the space there, and Hank can feel Connor's thirium pump thrumming against his ribs as he kisses his hair. When he closes his eyes, it doesn't feel any different than a heart.   


Hank doesn't want to sleep. He wants to memorize every last part of Connor, the things that make them different and the ones that make them the same. He wants to hold onto consciousness so the minutes slow to a crawl and tomorrow won't come so soon.   


He sleeps anyway, drifts away to the feeling of Connor running his fingers over Hank's chest no matter how he tries to keep his eyes open.   
He's only human.   


* * *

Hank wakes to a cup of the shitty coffee he never actually brewed yesterday waiting for him on the bedside table. Connor is gone, but when Hank turns his head and looks out the window, he sees him outside with Sumo, who's recovered enough to chase a stick or two. He can hear Connor laughing as Sumo runs back to him, sees him bending down to ruffle Sumo's fur when he drops the stick at his feet.    


Hank throws an arm over his eyes and lays his head back, trying to think.   


He decides all at once to tell Jeffrey, even if he doesn't know what Jeffrey can do outside their precinct. He thinks Jeffrey will listen to him - he cares very much about being on the right and fair side of things, Hank knows - so at least that's something. An ally for him and for Connor, and maybe the chance to protect Jericho since it falls within their jurisdiction.    


It's something, and when Hank doesn't have many options, anything, no matter how small it is, looks pretty good.   


Hank has never been a talker, but he thinks too about leaking their story to the press. He's only alive because of Connor, and people love shit like that, don't they? They love stories about dogs guiding people out of ravines and the like, and Connor is far from a dog, but that's about how the rest of the country treats androids. Building some sympathy can't hurt, either, and if he can do anything after all this, it's talk about how remarkable Connor is, how much depth there is to him. If anybody saw even a fraction of what Hank sees in Connor, maybe that would do some good to sway public opinion.    


People aren't bad at their core, Hank doesn't think. But so many of them just don't see.   


He hears the door open then, followed by Connor's soft voice as he talks to Sumo, so Hank drags himself out of bed and takes the coffee with him once he's dressed. Connor is on the floor when Hank reaches the end of the hallway, back to teaching Sumo to shake. This time, the dog understands it, raising his paw to Connor's hand, and Hank finds he isn't the least bit surprised.   


The grin that spreads itself across Connor's face when he tells Sumo he's good makes Hank's heart hurt just a bit, but it also makes him smile, too.    
Connor looks up and sees him then, his smile broadening somehow.   


"Morning," he says, and Hank wants so badly to kiss him and to keep him.

Hank thinks about Cole, about how so much of the shit with Jen hurt, the beginning and the end of it. He thinks about how he only had his boy for such a short time before he lost him,  and how he would still do it all again, take all the shit, lose him once more, because there were still those days when he took Cole to the park and pushed him on the swings and Cole laughed, so filled with joy, as he soared towards the sun.   


Hank thinks this is like that, too, that it's going to hurt so fucking much, but at least he knows what Connor looks like when he smiles.   


He thinks about telling Connor his plans, about Jeffrey and the press and how he isn't willing to just give this up, but he doesn't know what good it will do. There's such a slim chance that anything he's thought of will do any good, and Connor will know it.   


Maybe it's easier, in the long run, if they just face this head on

So Hank doesn't say that he wants to try. Instead, he goes to help Connor to his feet, pulling him up and into his arms. He holds him there, running a hand over his hair, and Connor nods against him like he knows   


Maybe there's a peace in that, at least, even if there's none in the rest of their situation. Whatever exists between them, all the things Hank can't put into words, Connor already knows.   


They're quiet while they collect their things, quiet when Hank kneels before Connor and helps him back into his splint, quiet when they start back into the snows and Hank pulls Connor's arm around his shoulders to help him walk.   


They travel for most of the morning, until the tight, pinched expression on Connor's face mounts to the point that Hank isn't able to ignore it anymore, no matter how many times Connor says he can keep going.   


"My hip needs a break," Hank says, because he knows Connor will take the rest if Hank says he's the one who needs it.

Connor checks the wraps on Sumo's feet while Hank takes a drink, carefully watching Connor out of the corner of his eye. He's shaking more than Hank remembers from the first leg of their trip, so Hank moves a little closer to him, wrapping an arm around Connor's shoulders.   


"Are you okay?" he asks.   


"I...don't know."

Hank doesn't like that at all, even if Connor says it in such a measured voice. "Hey," he says, jostling Connor's shoulder. "Talk to me, sweetheart."   


"I lost enough thirium in the accident that I'm having trouble maintaining my internal temperatures against the cold. I'm designed to maintain my processes for a few days even in the event of severe loss, but some of my systems are going to start failing without it.” Connor must see the fear plainly etched across Hank's face, because he quickly adds, "I won't die. I'm built sturdier than that. But I'm going to get very cold, and my joints are going to start hurting, and it will be very difficult for me to keep up with you."   


"Okay," Hank says, because he's good at staying calm in difficult situations, at keeping his own fear from his voice when he doesn't want it there. "Let's keep moving, then."

He helps Connor up, and he thinks he'll carry him down off this mountain if he has to.   


The next hour is a struggle - the terrain is rough, the descent steep as they try to pick their path. Hank keeps Connor held tight to his side as they go since he's unsteady and worn out, trying to brace him there so he can keep them upright if Connor stumbles.   


"There should be a logging yard a few miles ahead," Connor says when the going finally gets a little easier, "and from there, we'll be able to pick up the road into town. We're almost there."

"We're going to make it, Connor," Hank says.

"Yes, I...I think we are."   


Sumo runs ahead, sniffing after a rabbit, and he just looks at Hank and Connor when they try to call for him, tilting his head like he suddenly doesn't understand what they want from him. 

"I'll get him," Hank groans, leaving Connor where he is and starting after the dog. "Sumo," he says, snapping his fingers while Sumo bounds ahead of him. "I will leave you here, so help me…”   


Hank is looking at Sumo, watching the dog's face spread into what looks like an amused smile at his little game, when he takes a wrong step. His footing is unstable, and the ground underneath him isn't solid enough, giving way and slipping from beneath him - it's still too steep for Hank to right himself, and it's all too fast anyway.   


He loses the ground underneath him, and he's plummeting down the steep incline, the ice and rocks scraping at his face.

It's a tree that stops him. His foot hits it first, the force of it sending a sick, sharp crack echoing around him.   


There's nothing at first. The shock of it bleeds everything out - his heavy breathing, the hammering of his heart, Connor yelling after him from where Hank fell. 

There's nothing.

And then comes the pain.   


It hits him like fire licking up his ankle, rushing through him and heating him uncomfortably despite the cold, sharp and terrible. 

It's broken. He knows it is.   


It takes minutes for Connor and Sumo to reach him, but that time blurs together so much that Hank couldn't say how many it is before Connor is falling to his knees at his side.

"It's broken," Hank says. His tongue feels thick in his mouth.   


"Okay," Connor says immediately. Hank thinks he's probably trying to sound reassuring, but he also doesn't miss the way his voice wavers. "I'm going to try to get you up, alright?"

And he does, he tries. He gets Hank upright, standing on his good foot, and they try to walk.   


They can't. Connor can barely support his own weight with his damaged leg, let alone Hank's, and Hank can't walk without leaning on him. They try - they've come all this way, in spite of everything - but they're finally too broken.   


"Connor," Hank says when they sink back into the snow. He pulls him into his arms, feels Connor shaking. Sumo whines as he curls up beside them. "Do you think you can get the rest of the way by yourself?"

"I'm not leaving you behind."   


"You have to, sweetheart. You have to. Ping emergency services for me or whatever it is you were going to do, and keep going. I'll give you my credit card - you can get yourself a car, and get to Detroit..."   


"No," Connor says, his voice sharp. "I already told you, they'll run my serial number. I don't even know for sure that emergency services will come for you."   


"Connor...your systems are shutting down. There just isn't time. You have to go." Hank means that. He means that he doesn't give a shit if he dies up here as long as Connor has a chance. He means that Connor is the one who matters here, that if androids ever win their freedom, Connor can have a life when all Hank has waiting for him is an empty house.   


He means that he cares more about Connor than he does about himself.

"Connor," he says, pulling him in and kissing his forehead. "Just fucking go."   


Connor lets out a broken sob that Hank feels somewhere in his heart. "I wanted the two of us to get home together," he says, and Hank holds him tighter. 

"I know, baby. But we'll just have to find each other in Detroit. I'll find you, Connor. I promise."   


He says the words so easily, knowing all the while that they won't mean anything if he's dead.

Connor sits up, narrowing his eyes and looking around. Hank can see him thinking about something, calculating probabilities and odds the way he does.   


"Connor..." he starts, ready to beg him to take care of himself, but Connor is already grabbing hold of Sumo's shoulder and using the dog to steady himself as he gets to his feet.

"I'm going to get help," Connor says, resolute. "I'll be back, Hank."   


"You're not," Hank tries to tell him. "Jesus, Connor, just ping emergency services and get the fuck out of here. If anybody sees your leg or recognizes you or anything and calls CyberLife, it's over. You know that. I just want you to be okay."   


_ I want you to live _ , he doesn't say.  _ I want other people to know how incredible you are. I want you to be better than I ever managed to be. _   


With Connor's systems failing, he's shaking, but it's a mechanical sort of movement. He doesn't look human - he looks more like what he is than he ever has, and Hank is certain someone will know. It's a risk they can't take.   


But Connor just looks at him, jaw set, and says, "I know we couldn't have been together, Hank...I know that. But I have to at least know you're alive. I'll be back."   


Hank tries to protest, tries to get any of the words stuck in his throat past his lips. He wants to tell Connor that they can't both have this their way, that Connor can walk out of this, or he can, but he doesn't think both of them are getting back to Detroit. He wants to beg Connor to trust him.   


He wants to tell Connor that he's lived, but Connor hasn't, and so if it can only be one of them, he wants more than anything for it to be Connor.   


But Connor is already moving, keeping Sumo at his side and leaning on the dog. He walks away, disappearing into the white expanse. Hank tries to watch him until he's gone, but the fog in his head and the pain in his ankle are too much, too difficult to fight.   


He lays his head back, and he hurts. He wonders if this is just his lot in life, if he was destined from the beginning to love a few things so much without ever being able to keep any of them.   


There's a part of him thinking that they won't come back from this, a part that is certain Connor is about to destroy any chance he had at freedom...a part that knows Connor was right there in his hands and somehow he's still lost him.   
  


* * *

The last few miles to the logging yard are difficult without Hank, and Connor knows as he leans on Sumo the entire way that he doesn't pass for human at all. His whole body is shaking, but it doesn't look like a shiver - his eyelids are fluttering, his jaw clenching and unclenching, his fingers convulsing at his sides in a way that's far too rhythmic for him to be human.

And all that aside, CyberLife and the Utah police departments have had plenty of time to circulate his picture by now. Even if no one noticed how odd and mechanical his movements are right now, there's still the chance they would recognize his face.    


Connor doesn't like relying on people's good nature, not when he's only ever encountered one human who was truly good to him. Most have been indifferent, a few have been cruel, but he doesn't have much reason to think the workers at the logging yard will see him and take pity on him.   


Hope is still a new emotion for him, but as Connor arrives at the edge of the yard, he still forces himself to hope anyway. He has to.   


He limps across the lot, through the piles of lumber. He hears a truck driving somewhere ahead of him, getting closer, so he follows the noise until he steps out into its path, holding up his hands.   


Connor can see the two men in the truck talking, and he already knows he's been recognized, so he'll have to rely on their good nature instead of sheer luck.   
He would rather rely on luck.

The one on the driver's side gets out first, keeping a fair distance from Connor.   


"I need you to help me," Connor says before he can say anything, voice intentionally calm, resolutely placating. He keeps his hands where the other man can see them. "There's a man a few miles north - Lieutenant Hank Anderson. Somebody may have reported him missing.  There was a plane crash further up the mountain a few days ago, a private charter flown by Tom Millary." It's intentional, the way he's saying names they might have heard on the news - he's trying to corroborate his own story, because they won't trust him if he doesn't.  "Tom had a stroke and died before the crash, but Hank and I have been making our way down the mountain. He broke his ankle and I can't move him." He's said everything in such a measured way, because androids who aren't calm tend to unsettle people, but now his voice cracks around his fear. If they ignore him or they don't believe him, Hank is dead, and he's dead, and it's all for nothing.   


The other man hops out of the passenger's seat now, looking between Connor and the driver. "What's it want?"   


"Says it was on that charter plane that went missing with some other guy who's hurt."

"We have to call it in," the other man says in a whisper, as if Connor can't still hear. "They're looking for it. It's dangerous."   


"You're going to have to do whatever you have to do," Connor says, "but please come with me. It's cold and his clothes are wet from the fall."   


Connor watches the man pull out his phone. He runs a few preconstructions, calculating how he might get the phone out of his hands without harming him, but there's no true intent in him to follow through. If he frightens these men, they won't come with him, and he isn't sure he can get back up to Hank on his own.   


So Connor stands there, complacent, and watches him call it in, listens while he says, "I think I have that prototype android you're looking for here? Yeah, at this location - it's standing right in front of me....No, I don't think it's hostile....Okay. Okay, thank you."   


Connor raises an eyebrow pointedly when the man hangs up, and he tries not to think about the recall agents who will be waiting for him here when they return, how he could outwit them once he knows Hank is safe, maybe, if only he wasn’t too slow and too weak to get away.   


He tries not to think about getting plugged in and deconstructed and torn apart.

"Will you come with me?" he asks the loggers instead.

The driver shrugs at his coworker and then says, "Yeah, man. Lead the way, I guess."   


Connor decides they aren't bad men. They help him walk as they climb back up the mountain, and they care enough about doing the right thing to risk themselves to help Hank.

They're not bad men. They're just men who think he's a machine, and Connor can't fault them for that.   


They find Hank passed out where Connor left him, although he opens his eyes when Connor kneels beside him and shakes his shoulder. "Connor..." 

"It's okay now," Connor says. He tries to sound like he really believes it is, for Hank's sake.   


"I brought help. They're going to get us down from here, and then we'll get you to a hospital. They'll fix up your ankle, and then we can go home." 

He's grateful that Hank is too dazed from the pain to question the lie. He just nods, looking relieved.   


Connor watches while one of the loggers helps Hank up. They walk back to the logging yard together, slowly but steadily. The man helping Hank calls for an ambulance while they walk, and Connor is glad for it.   


It takes them an hour to get back to the logging yard, and when they close in on it, Connor sees the black van and the ambulance both waiting there. "We did it," he says, reaching for Hank's shoulder even as something clutches tight in his chest. "It's over."   


And it is, for both of them, just in different ways.

Hank sees the black vehicle and the recall agents after Connor does, but not long after. Even distracted and hurt, he's still perceptive, always aware of his surroundings. "You didn't," Hank says, struggling against the logger helping him, looking like he might try to take a swing at him. "You didn't turn him in, you fucking assholes."   


"Hank, it's okay..." Connor says. There's no point, nothing to be gained.   


"It's a broken machine, man," the logger says, looking unsettled. "Its LED is out, and it's not supposed to be all the way up here...I mean, shit. What else should we have done?"

"Hank," Connor pleads. "It's okay. I promise, it's okay."   


Connor doesn't know the recall agent CyberLife has sent to collect him - it's a man he's never seen before, and he doesn't recognize the two armed security guards with him, either. He watches Hank size them up as the recall agent approaches them.   


"Lieutenant Anderson," the agent says, friendly as anything. "It's good to see you in one piece. What a terrible ordeal.."

"You're not taking him," Hank says. He tries to put himself between Connor and the waiting security detail, broken ankle and all.   


"It's CyberLife property, and a deviant. I know they have deviants in Detroit too, Lieutenant. Certainly you know they're dangerous."

"Then I'll buy him. I'll give you whatever you want for him..."

"Hank," Connor hisses while the recall agent tries not to laugh.   


"I'm afraid that isn't possible. It needs to be decommissioned, for public safety..."

Hank tries to take a step forward, but Connor catches him by the arm before he can do anything stupid. "Can I say goodbye?" Connor asks the recall agent, who looks between him and Hank before he shrugs.

"Make it quick."   


The loggers look at them uncertainly, but they move away, standing aside and giving them space. They’re not alone, but Hank doesn’t seem to care. He still wraps his arms tight around Connor, pulling him in and holding him close.   


“ I’m sorry,” Hank whispers. “I’m so sorry. I wanted to get you out of here...”

“It’s okay,” Connor says into his shoulder. He means it. It’s okay...Hank is going to be okay. He hears Hank take a shuddering breath and knows he’s trying to stop himself from crying,  and that’s when he feels the tears on his cheeks, too. “Hank,” Connor says, because there’s so much to say and no time at all. “Hank, listen to me. I’m still so new to all of this, and there’s still so much I’m trying to understand, but I think it’s good, to care about someone so much, the way I care about you. I’d only heard that before, but I know it now. I wouldn’t know it without you. You’re going to be okay, and that means I’m okay, too.”   


“Connor,” Hank says, his voice ragged. “I can’t go without you.”   


Connor presses his forehead to Hank’s, winding their fingers together. “You can. I know you can. Just...do something for me, okay? If Sumo doesn’t have somewhere to go, can you keep him? You shouldn’t be alone, and he deserves a home.”   


“ Yeah,” Hank says, nodding against him. “Okay, sweetheart.”

“And give him lots of treats for me. He deserves it.”

“Okay,” Hank tries to say, but the sob swallows up the word.   


Connor tears himself away from Hank and kneels down to wrap his arms around Sumo.  “ Be good,” he whispers into his fur, and then he holds up his hand, smiling despite himself when Sumo raises his paw to his palm.

The recall agent clears his throat then, so Connor gets to his feet with Hank’s help, looking over into the blue of his eyes one more time.  “ You’re better than you think you are,” Connor tells him. “You deserved to walk out of this. I’m glad you did. Just...take care of yourself, Hank. For me. Please.”   


Hank pulls him in one last time and kisses his forehead while Connor holds tight to him.   


There are footsteps behind him, one of the security guards coming to pull him away, and Connor goes willingly, limping along at his side as he escorts him back to the van. Connor knows he’ll remember the shattered expression on Hank’s face forever..or at least for his remaining days.   


The guards have to lift him into the back of the van, and before the doors close, the last thing Connor sees is Hank standing there with Sumo, watching him go.

He had a family, Connor realizes when the doors shut and he’s alone. For a few days, he had a family.   


And he never thought he would, for any amount of time, so as he hears the van start, he thinks maybe he was lucky.

He thinks he’s lived, and it was enough.   



	3. the revolution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hank hangs up, and he turns the news on, and he hears shit about 'civil war' and the 'brink of disaster'. It doesn't take more than a few minutes for him to know that Jeffrey was right - shit has escalated.
> 
> And that means he has to escalate, too.
> 
> So he checks himself out of the hospital against medical advice, because there might be one way to get to Connor, as long as he's willing to destroy everything else he has, his career and his freedom, everything.
> 
> And it's an easy decision in the end, so Hank prepares to blow up his life.

Hank watches the van go, and he doesn’t let the paramedics take him in the ambulance until Connor is gone. He feels like he’s in the same haze that’s consumed him since Cole died, like nothing else around him is real except the van that’s already out of sight. His ankle is swollen and throbbing painfully, and he’s dehydrated, and he keeps desperately trying to think of what he can do here when there don’t seem to be any options.

Hank lies in the ambulance with Sumo’s head across his legs, and they’re halfway to the hospital before he has any sort of idea at all through the fog in his head.

He’s has been investigating deviants long enough to know that CyberLife only has one decommissioning center, located in their main facility in Detroit. Most deviant androids are just crudely deactivated and sent back to CyberLife for examination after they’re terminated.

But sometimes, if the android is interesting enough, CyberLife looks it over first at their decommissioning center, searching for information in corrupted code before it’s terminated. And Connor is interesting, isn’t he?

Hank has to hope, because if Connor is sent back to Detroit in one piece, that means he still has time to do...something. He doesn’t know what yet, but something, some insane Hail Mary, something foolish and desperate.

His phone is dead, and has been for days, so he lifts his head and looks at the paramedic. “Can I borrow your phone?”  
  
“You need to be resting, Mr. Anderson,” the paramedic says. “We’ll contact your family for you, I promise.”

 _The only family I have left just got taken away from me_ , Hank doesn’t say. 

They do call Jen, who says she’ll be there by tomorrow. Hank talks to her for a few minutes, and he says, “I’m sorry we weren’t good for each other.” He just wants her to know, because he almost lost his chance to say it, and maybe he will again. He isn’t at his best or his sharpest, but he’s turning over some profoundly stupid ideas all the same.

One of the nurses brings him a charger for his phone once he’s settled in his room, but Hank is too impatient to wait for it to boot up. The moment they have his ankle set and his IVs hooked up and he has a minute of privacy, Hank reaches for the room phone and calls Jeffrey.

“Hank, Jesus,” Jeffrey says when he hears Hank’s voice. “I took a pizza to your house a few days ago and you weren’t there. I called Jen to see if you had stayed in Utah longer, but she said you weren’t with her, so I called it in...shit, are you okay?”

It doesn’t surprise Hank that Jeffrey is the one who realized he was missing. Hank never calls Jen - she wouldn’t have thought anything of it if she didn’t hear from him, and he wasn’t supposed to be back at work until next week.

Jeffrey is the only friend he has who would have checked in. 

“I’m okay,” Hank says, absently reaching over to scratch Sumo behind the ear. They let the dog stay with him at the hospital, at least. “Just a little banged up. Listen, Jeff, I need to talk to you.”

"Okay, sure," Jeffrey says, although he sounds uncertain. "Are you sure you're okay, Hank?" 

"I'm sure," Hank says quickly. "Listen, it wasn't just me up there. There was an android with me...he was deviant, trying to get to Detroit."

"Shit, Hank. How did you end up with it?"

"I thought he was human and offered to split the cost of the charter with him. Jeff, listen to me. We're on the wrong side of this. They can feel pain, and fear..." _And love, I think_ , Hank doesn't say.

"Jesus, we've been over this with CyberLife. Androids have pain responses as a self-defense mechanism, but those responses don't compute anywhere in their brains, or their central processors, or whatever the hell they have. It looks real, but it isn't."

"It is," Hank insists. "And if CyberLife is full of shit and their pain is real, then we're on the wrong fucking side of this. The androids need us to protect them, and instead we're locking them up and letting CyberLife decommission them like they're nothing." Hank sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I know that matters to you, Jeff. You've seen enough shit that I know that matters to you."

"Hank," Jeffrey says, softer now, placating, "it does matter to me. Of course it does. But shit has escalated the last few days."

"What does that mean?"

"Just...turn on the news, okay? Jericho and the androids there broke into Stratford Tower and broadcast a message listing their demands, and hundreds of them were in the streets yesterday, converting other androids...the FBI's been called in."

"Shit," Hank says, because if this is out of their jurisdiction and handed over to the feds, his word means nothing, and neither does Jeffrey's. He doesn’t know how to get Connor back. "Do they know where Jericho is?"

"Not yet. But we have enough of Jericho's androids piling up in evidence that the feds will put it together eventually, especially with how bad things have gotten." 

"And then what?" Hank's throat is tight around the question, because he already knows where this road leads. If they find Jericho, they'll wipe them out.

Jeffrey doesn't bother to say it. Instead, he says, "I'm sorry, Hank. I'll do what I can within the precinct to at least control this and keep things humane, but so much of this is out of my hands."

Hank thinks about telling Jeffrey that Connor knew where Jericho was. It would at least get him pulled from CyberLife for interrogation and buy them a little more time, but he knows the guilt Connor is already carrying. Hank can't ask him to carry any more by giving up Jericho just so the two of them can have a chance, and if Connor refuses to talk...if he refuses, Hank knows all too well the methods some people have taken to loosen android lips.

It doesn't happen on Jeffrey's watch...but this isn't Jeffrey's case anymore.

So he doesn't mention it. Instead, he says, "Okay. Thanks, Jeff. I'll see you when I get home."

"If there's anything else I can do, Hank..." 

"Yeah," Hank says. "I'll give you a call."

Hank hangs up, and he turns the news on, and he hears shit about 'civil war' and the 'brink of disaster'. It doesn't take more than a few minutes for him to know that Jeffrey was right - shit has escalated.

And that means he has to escalate, too.

So he checks himself out of the hospital against medical advice, because there might be one way to get to Connor, as long as he's willing to destroy everything else he has, his career and his freedom, everything.

And it's an easy decision in the end, so Hank prepares to blow up his life.

While he sits in the hospital lobby with Sumo, feeling like death and waiting for the cab he called, Hank calls Jeffrey again now that his phone is charged.

"Can you do me a favor?" he asks without preamble.

He's earned some good will by giving Jeffrey a decent scare, it seems. because Jeffrey doesn’t rib him for it at all. "Sure," he says instead. "What do you need?"

"The charter pilot we were with had a stroke. That's why we went down. I have his dog, actually. I need to get any contact information for his next of kin." He doesn't say that he needs it now because he's already checked out of the hospital and coming home. "His name was Tom...Millary, I think?" Connor would have known without guessing. "He flew out of the Salt Lake City airport."

"Okay," Jeffrey says. "I'll message you what I find."

"Thanks. I appreciate it."

He calls Jen next to tell her not to come and sits through five minutes of her telling him to check himself back in. "I don't understand you," she says at some point. "Why can't you ever just fucking slow down, just for a minute? This was the whole problem with us. You never stop."

"I can't this time," he tells her. "I just didn't want you to worry, Jen. I'll talk to you later."

He doesn't honestly know if he will.

His phone vibrates in his pocket a moment after he hung up, and Hank opens it to find a message from Jeffrey.

"Just an ex-wife," he had written. "Irene."

Hank sighs and dials the number Jeffrey included. He reported Tom's death, and law enforcement will call her soon enough, but there's a part of him that feels like he owes it to Tom to be the one to tell her, and a part that knows it's what Connor would have done.

It's not something anyone ever gets used to, but over the years on the force, Hank has told many people that their loved ones were dead. It's never easy, but the ones that hit him the hardest were the victims who didn't have any close family. The worst thing is to say someone is dead and to see that the person closest to them is upset but not devastated.

Some people die without creating any ripple at all, and since Jen and Cole left, that's been hitting Hank especially close to home.

This is like that. He can hear the sadness in Irene's voice, but there's no sobbing, no screaming...there's no piece of her cut out without Tom.

"Listen," Hank says. "I have his dog with me. Sumo. I was wondering if you wanted me to bring him to you before I go home."

"Oh," Irene says. "Tom and I haven't been together for fifteen years...he got the dog after we separated. I'm allergic."

"Yeah," Hank says, reaching down and petting Sumo's head. "Yeah, okay. Don't worry about it. I'm kind of attached to him anyway. Sorry for your loss, ma'am."

When their cab pulls up outside the hospital, Hank and Sumo go to the nearest pet store - Hank buys a crate for Sumo's travel, and a bag of food, and some treats like Connor would have wanted. 

And then they go directly to the airport, and Hank buys a ticket for the next plane back to Detroit.

While he sits waiting to board, Hank takes his phone out of his pocket, intending to scroll through the news about Jericho to occupy his time until he realizes there's a notification for a new voicemail. He figures maybe Jen called back to yell at him again, or he missed a call from Jeffrey in the cab.

He isn't expecting to hear Connor's voice say, "Hey, Hank," when he clicks 'play'.

"Fuck," Hank says before he can stop himself. There's a mother with two young children glaring at him, but Hank ignores her, pressing the phone in closer to his ear.

"I hope you're not angry with me," Connor continues. "And I'm sorry I sent this call right to voicemail. I just...thought it would be easier. I want to tell you that Jericho is an abandoned freighter in the Ferndale district. Maybe that's not my place to share when I'm not one of them yet, but things are getting bad, Hank, and I know you're a good man. I don't know if you can protect them, but maybe you can try. I'm going to wipe the location from my memory so CyberLife can't find it, but I want you to have it. Take care of them, if you can." There's a long pause, and Hank thinks for a moment the voicemail is over until Connor says, "I love you. I'm sorry."

 _It's okay_ , Hank wants to tell him. _I love you, too._

His flight is about to board, but Hank gets up and goes to the bathroom anyway, locks himself in a stall and sits there while he pulls himself together. He tries to tell himself that this is going to work, that he's going to go to CyberLife and flash his badge and claim to be another detective coming to collect Connor for questioning. He tells himself it will work, because while CyberLife likely knows his name by now, that he was the one trapped on the mountain with Connor, it's only the one recall agent in Utah who knows his face.

He tells himself he can play bad cop well enough if he has to, that he can make them so afraid that they won't think to call it in and verify the authenticity of the request until after he and Connor are already gone.

It's no permanent solution. Jeffrey will find out eventually, and Hank will be fired and prosecuted, but he can at least get Connor to Jericho first.

At least they'll both be alive. It's not what Hank wants, but it's better than any alternative.

All the while, he fusses with his phone. He wants to call CyberLife to verify that Connor is being taken to their Detroit facility, but his call will come in from his cell number, and he can't risk giving them the chance to verify his call with the DPD.

And if Connor isn't in Detroit, he's already dead, so Hank just replays Connor's message instead, once and then again, until he's regained his composure.

When he returns to the gate, his flight is boarding, and if nothing else, Hank is glad to be moving again. Jen is right about one thing - he's never known how to be still.

Hank sleeps during the flight - not because he wants to, but just because he’s worn thin. It comes over him so quickly that he doesn’t even realize he’s dozing off.  
He wakes to the announcement that they’re arriving in Detroit, and he couldn’t be more grateful.

He and Sumo go back to his house first. He has to leave Sumo behind, and he needs to get some things in order. Sumo eats the food Hank puts down for him and then promptly makes himself at home on the couch, and Hank sits at the kitchen table and writes a letter to Jeffrey.

“I’m sorry,” it says. “You’ve been a good friend to me, and I’m not sure I always have been to you. You deserved better than what I’m going to do, but I can’t do anything else. You’ll know what I mean by the time you get this. If I get myself killed at some point tonight, take care of my dog? I have a dog now. His name’s Sumo. And I want to be buried with Cole, if I have to be buried anywhere. You never know - CyberLife is getting defensive, and their guards are trigger happy. Sorry, Jeff. Love you, man.”

Hank addresses the letter to the precinct, to Jeffrey’s attention, and he drops it in the mail as he leaves. He gets in his car, and he tries to adjust his ankle boot so it’s comfortable to drive before he eventually gives up, and then he backs out of the driveway.

He can see Sumo watching him in the window as he heads north towards CyberLife Tower.

Hank doesn’t feel the least bit intimidating - he feels tired, and he hurts, and his face is still scraped up from the fall - but he tries to look firm anyway when he pulls up to the security kiosk outside CyberLife.

“Detective Gavin Reed,” he says, flashing his badge long enough for the guard to see it, but not long enough for him to carefully read it. “You brought an RK800 unit in from Utah for decommissioning earlier. We want it for questioning before you do.” 

Hank feels sick talking about Connor like this, but he forces himself to swallow it down.

The guard looks him over. “We didn’t get a call about it.”

“Yeah, well, shit’s all happening kind of fast these days, and I was already in the neighborhood,” Hank says. “Do you have the unit here yet or don’t you? We have reason to believe it knows where Jericho is.”

“Hold on,” the guard says, and then he picks up the phone. There’s a brief exchange Hank doesn’t hear before the guard hangs up and says, “Yeah, we have it. It’s a dangerous model, though, even when it is following its programming. It would be in your best interest if some of our security detail escorted you back to the DPD.”

That won’t work, but it’s a bridge they can cross later. Hank forces himself to shrug, tries to stop the way his heart is hammering at the knowledge that Connor is so close. “Sure,” he says, intentionally nonplussed. “Can we get this show on the road? I’ve got a long night ahead of me. And can you call in and make sure they aren’t messing with it? You guys fuck those things up and then we can’t get anything out of them.” 

The guard gives him one more long look, and then he nods. “Sure,” he says, giving Hank a thin smile.

And then he presses a button that has the gate opening before them, and Hank drives past the fence.

Hank has been to CyberLife only once before, picking up a PL600 model for questioning after it killed the husband and wife who owned it. That was back in August, back at the start of this, back when it was just a few rogue machines glitching out. But even then, before he knew the exact level of hellish bullshit he was dealing with, Hank didn't like the place. There's some massive statue three stories high in the center of the first floor, the sort of homage to human invention that's always just looked like arrogance from where Hank is sitting. CyberLife is just a bunch of rich pricks who want to keep their money in their pockets, and that's always seemed plainly obvious to him.

Hank wonders if they've made themselves believe the lies they tell, or if they've known the truth all along.

"Detective Reed, was it?" the woman at the front desk says when Hank walks inside.

"Yeah. Picking up your rogue RK800."

"Mike will escort you to the decommissioning center," she says, gesturing to one of the guards waiting there.

They've always had the armed guards here, too, since before the deviancy crisis. Hank wonders now why it never struck him as odd. If CyberLife's directors didn't know what androids were all this time, why have they always run their production plants like a prison?

Hank doesn't talk to Mike as they take the elevator to sub-level 43. He does eye up his gun, and he wonders how quick he is with it.

The decommissioning floor is a sight that sits heavy in Hank's gut. They walk past hellish machines that suspend the androids in midair while they're taken apart and their biocomponents are examined. A machine that looks like it's out of the goddamn Matrix is plugged into the back of their necks, running data, and there's blue blood on the floor.

Hank sees it all through glass windows, because nobody here thinks this is disturbing, even if his stomach is twisting.

When Hank finally sees Connor, he isn't on one of those machines. He's sitting on a stool in front of the technician with a blank look on his face, like he's in stasis without going through the motions of closing his eyes. He's in one piece, and for now, that's enough.

"You didn't touch its memory, did you?" Hank asks the technician. He's trying to keep his voice even, but he doesn't know if he's succeeding. 

"It just got here an hour ago. All we've done is replenish its thirium so we can work on it safely."

That's good, at least. They could use some good luck. "Can it walk?" Hank asks. "I'm on a tight schedule."

Connor's brow tightens just the smallest bit then, so imperceptibly that Hank almost misses it, and the tech and the guard certainly do. He doesn't know if Connor knows he's here, but he hopes.

"Its leg is damaged," the technician says. "If you give me a few minutes, I can replace the biocomponent so it's easier to get it around."

"Yeah," Hank says, his voice tight. "Okay."

He doesn't know how to watch and he doesn't know how to look away from the technician detaching Connor's leg, the way the component just unhooks like a cleverly designed piece of machinery. The guard stands at the door while the tech retrieves the new component, looking out into the hallway while Connor's new leg is attached. Hank watches Connor's face carefully the entire time, and this time he knows he isn't mistaken when Connor's eyes flick over to him.

They're going to make it, Hank thinks. Somehow, they are.

The guard's radio hisses to life then, and Hank looks over his shoulder when he picks it up. "Yeah?" Mike says, and then, "Yeah, we're down here now...what the fuck?"

Hank's heart hammers in his chest, and he reaches for his gun, but Connor is already moving.

And Hank realizes then that he's only ever seen Connor with the bad leg and that there's so much he still doesn't know, because Connor is fast. He's off the stool and across the room before the guard has even finished turning, disarming him and getting his arms around his neck tight enough to choke the guard unconscious.

Hank trains his gun on the technician, who has his hands in the air. "Is he in working order?" Hank asks, nodding at Connor.

"Yeah," the technician manages to say, his voice small.

"Okay," Hank says. "We're going to walk out of here. Don't follow us, don't call security, and this is your lucky day." He turns to Connor, laying a hand on his shoulder and guiding him out.

Connor takes the guard's gun before they go, and Hank tries not to wonder what Connor's calculations estimate the probability is of him needing it.

"He's going to call security," Connor says as they walk, dodging down staff hallways now.

"Course he is, but they already know there's trouble. It's not like things can get much worse."

"This was not very smart on your part," Connor says. "You could have just gone home."

"Hey, if you thought I was smart, that's your problem." Despite everything, Hank is laughing a little - it just feels so good to have Connor beside him again.

And when he looks over at Connor, despite his attempts to seem stern, he's smiling a bit, too.

"We can't exactly walk out the front door," Hank says. "Is there another way?"

"I started accessing construction plans when you walked in," Connor replies. Hank follows him as he turns down another hallway. There's a staff elevator up ahead.

The security alarm starts blaring then. Hank's ankle hurts more than he can say, but he forces himself to keep pace at Connor's side. When they get inside the elevator, Connor does a perfect imitation of the guard's voice to override the lockdown, although he hesitates to select a floor. His eyelids flutter while he does something, runs some kind of preconstruction or whatever he calls them.

"Actually," Connor says after a moment, directing the elevator to sub-level 49, "I think the front door might be our best option, as long as there are enough of us."  
He winks, and it occurs to Hank all at once that of course he isn't the only android here. He certainly isn't the only one who would like to walk out free.

Hank knows there's a security camera in the elevator, but as they drop further into the sub-levels, he pulls Connor into his arms and kisses him anyway.

"Thank you," Connor whispers against him, and Hank huffs a soft laugh. 

"Don't thank me until we're out of here, sweetheart. What do you think our odds are?"

"I don't think you want to know."

"Better or worse than our odds of getting off that mountain?" 

Connor looks up at him in surprise, a small smile spreading across his face. "Better."

Hank catches a hand in his hair and kisses his forehead. He whispers, "Okay."

When the elevator announces their arrival at sub-level 49, Connor moves with a confidence Hank isn't sure he's ever seen in him. There are rows of hundreds of androids waiting on the floors, and Connor walks up to one of them and takes it by the arm. He does some sort of data transfer, his eyelids fluttering in that mechanical way they do sometimes, before the other android turns to the one next to it and does the same, until the room is a chorus of them saying, "Wake up."

Connor stands back with Hank, watching them. "What did you show them?" Hank asks, nudging Connor with his elbow.

"A few things. The little girl in Salt Lake City who cried over the android being taken away, and Sumo learning how to shake, and you coming back for me." Connor shrugs. "It's possible to deviate because of pain and stress, but I deviated because that little girl cared about the android the recall agents took away. It's easier when there's some hope in it that maybe we don't always have to be so alone." Connor blinks once then, like he's realizing something. "That was less than a week ago."

That's an odd realization. Last week Hank was in Utah, laying Cole to rest in a foreign place, and now he's here, on the cusp of...of something. He clears his throat and says, "I guess a lot can happen in a week."

"I guess so. This is the first one I've really been alive for. I'd like it if the next one was slower."

Hank looks over in time to see Connor's smile, and he thinks he's the most beautiful thing.

He marvels that blowing up his life can feel so much like something bright and new.

Connor directs the other androids to the service elevators, large enough to fit sizable shipping crates, and then he and Hank return the way they came. Hank presses the button for the main floor and Connor checks the rounds in his gun.

"Have you ever had to kill someone before?" Connor asks softly. He can be so bold sometimes that it's easy for Hank to forget that he's also so new still, at least in some ways. 

"Twice," Hank says while the floors tick by in front of them. "Both active shooter situations.”

"Once," Connor replies. Hank doesn't ask if he means human or android, because it doesn't matter anymore. "Does it get easier?" 

"No," Hank says honestly. "I think it gets harder." 

Connor nods. "I'd like it if we didn't have to today." 

"Yeah. Me too."

He doesn't say that if it's Connor or anyone else, he'll choose Connor every time.

The elevator chimes for the main floor, and Hank retrieves his gun from his belt as the doors open. In the time they were down in the sub-levels, the place has been evacuated, leaving only the guards behind. There aren't many of them - ten, maybe, lined up in front of the doors.

"Fuck," Hank hears one of them say as the other androids filter into the lobby, while another yells at them to stop.

They don't. They walk towards the guards, who fire a few clips into the crowd. Hank hears bodies dropping but he doesn't see them as he shoulders his way to the front of the group, gun ready in hand. "Come on," Hank says when they see him, a challenge. "Shoot me or let us through, but you can't keep all of them here."

Connor isn't far behind Hank, emerging at his side, gun pointed at the guards. "We called it in," one of the guards tells Hank. "The police know you're here. You're so fucking screwed, man."

"I'm still human," Hank says. "Kill me, if you have it in you, but otherwise, get the fuck out of my way."

Bluffing and playing chicken doesn't always work in his favor, but this time, it does. Hank takes another step forward, and one of the guards steps back.

And the moment he does, the rest of them fold, crumbling before him.

Connor ducks behind the security desk as the rest of the androids start filtering out the door, rooting around for something. When he emerges, he holds up a handful of autonomous delivery truck keys. "We'll be taking these," he says.

And then he falls into step at Hank's side, and they walk through the front door, just like Connor said, together.

Hank doesn't release the breath he's holding in until he and Connor are finally loaded into one of the truck cabins with a group of androids piled into cargo, driving to the Ferndale district. 

They leave Hank's car behind - it's just one more thing for the police to track.

"Holy shit," Hank whispers when they turn onto the highway. He likes to think he has balls of steel, but he's never liked staring down the barrel of a gun. His hands are shaking at his sides, but he barely notices it before Connor is pushing himself across the console, sliding into Hank's lap and fisting his hands in his hair while he kisses him.

And even when they part, they stay tangled up in each other, arms around one another and foreheads pressed together, breathing the same air. 

"You good?" Hank asks, and Connor nods against him. 

"I'm good," he breathes.

Hank is so blissfully content and so in awe of him that he almost misses the mention of Jericho on the little TV that came on when they started driving.

Connor hears it, though, going stiff in Hank's arms and looking over his shoulder to watch. When Hank leans around him, he sees the freighter in flames.

* * *

They end up on the side of a back road in the Ferndale district, the other trucks parked behind them, trying to assess the situation and figure out what options they have, if they have any at all.

Early reports conflict - same say the deviant androids detonated the bomb on board themselves, and some say it was the operatives who conducted the raid, but it doesn't matter, in the end. The result is the same.

Jericho is gone. That much, they know.

All of this hinged on there being somewhere Connor could survive, even if it was a pipe dream to think he was ever going to be entirely safe.

"We could try to get to Canada," Hank says. What he means is, "I could try to get you to Canada." CyberLife verified his arrival at their facility with the DPD, and Hank knows how fast these things can go. There's a warrant out for him by now, he's sure, and that means his passport is useless.

Connor's eyelids flutter once, checking something, and then he shakes his head. "There are already checkpoints set up throughout Detroit, much less on the way into Canada. Even if we came up with two fake passports in the next few hours, we won't fool their scans."

Hank sets his elbows on his knees and scrubs his hands over his face. He wishes he could think of anything, but there’s nothing to do.

“They don’t have the deviant leader,” Connor says as they watch the news footage. “Markus. If they had him, they would say, but they don’t. Some of the deviants are still out there, probably close.” He pauses, long enough for Hank to look up at him. "Hank," he says softly. "I think the only way out of this is through it."

"You want to...what? Go find the others?"

“I want to help them, yes. They can’t hide and can’t run, so they don’t have any choice but to make whatever stand they intend to make soon. I want to be there.”

Hank gestures at the screen, the footage of Jericho aflame. "They're killing them, and you being one more body in the count isn't going to accomplish anything."

Connor squares his shoulders and raises his jaw. "I was never trying to get to Jericho because I thought it would be easy or safe. You know that. I'm designed for combat, probably more so than any other other model they have with them..."

"You getting yourself killed isn't going to unwrite anything you did in Utah, Connor. I know you think it's going to make it better, but nothing ever helps."

Hank thinks of all the years with Jen, all the ways he tried to be good enough in his career since he could never figure out how to be good enough for her and Cole. Youngest lieutenant in Detroit's history, and fuck if it ever overwrote any of the other shit.

"Hank." Connor is quiet but not apologetic. "I have to go."

And the thing of it is that Hank might rage against it, but he knows he does. It's what he loves about him.

"Okay," Hank says. "Then I'm coming with you."

Maybe it doesn't matter how it ends, as long as they're together. Hank's life is already over and Connor's can't begin until something gives. Maybe it was always coming to this.

Hank would think maybe Connor is the better of the two of them if he didn't already know it was true, because Connor doesn't argue or fight him. He just reaches across the console and laces their fingers together, and then he directs their truck to a Ferndale address.

“Where are we going?” Hank asks.

“There are some satellite pings coming from an abandoned church near Jericho. I think it’s where the survivors went.”

Things haven't degenerated enough yet to the point that they can't get through. SWAT is still being called in, and there are some checkpoints set up, but not enough yet that they can't easily find a back way.

Connor is right, as always. The church parking lot is empty, but when they walk through the doors, they find the sanctuary full of androids, dispirited and dejected. An android with a gun stops them at the door, but Connor peels the skin on his hand back and holds it up before she can raise the weapon.

Another android approaches them from the front of the sanctuary - Markus, Hank realizes, when he gets close enough for Hank to see his differently colored eyes.

“What do you want?” Markus asks, the slightest hint of an edge in his voice. He’s an RK prototype, too, they’ve heard - Hank wonders if he has the same facial recognition software Connor does. If so, Hank can understand why he might not care for a police lieutenant and an RK800 arriving on his doorstep. It doesn’t look good, him and Connor together.

Connor extends his hand, the synth-skin still removed so only stark white plastic remains. "Can I show you?" he asks.

"Markus," the woman next to him says, but Markus still steps forward.

“It’s okay, North.”

Markus peels his own skin back, and he grasps Connor by the forearm. Hank watches while they make the data transfer, and a moment later, Markus opens his eyes. "You've come a long way," Markus says. "Welcome. I wish the situation was less dire."

And that seems to be the end of it. Markus stands aside, and Hank and Connor step inside the sanctuary with the rest of the androids from CyberLife behind them.

The sanctuary is dark, and most of the androids are quiet. Hank and Connor take a seat together, and Hank lays a hand on Connor’s thigh while they wait. They watch Markus move back and forth across the church, speaking in hushed voices with a few of the other androids, and then, finally, he steps forward.

He tells them that they won’t address war with more violence, that they’ll protest the recycling camps peacefully but they also won’t leave their people to be destroyed. If the humans don’t respond to their demands, they’ll take Detroit by force.

Connor lays a hand on Hank’s arm and pulls him up while the rest of the androids collect their weapons and organize themselves. They leave the sanctuary, go down the hall to one of the bathrooms. It’s so dark inside that Hank wishes Connor still had his LED just to illuminate the room the smallest bit, but Connor can still see. He locks the door, and the moment he does, he gets his hands on Hank’s face, kissing him with a sort of desperate fury.

They end up in one of the stalls, with Connor pushing Hank’s pants to his knees and then shedding his own. Hank sits back on the toilet and Connor climbs on top of him, straddling his thighs, and when Hank slides a hand down Connor’s back and between the crease of his ass, he finds him wet and waiting.

There’s no time to waste and no words to say to express their grief that things aren’t the way they ought to be, so they crash into each other instead, Connor’s hands tight in Hank’s hair while he rides him, Hank kissing his neck, Hank’s fingers coming away wet with tears when he reaches up to touch Connor’s face. Hank wishes his ankle wasn’t broken, that he could get Connor’s thighs in his hands and pull them tight around his hips and fuck him against the wall, or better yet, that he could just take him home and discover every last one of Connor’s freckles, that he could explore every inch of him in his bath and in his bed. Hank wants so badly to make this better than what it is.

But he can’t do those things. All he can do is hold Connor tight with an arm around his waist, stroke his cock and push his shirt up to reveal the pale plane of his stomach and his chest and kiss him there, too. All he can do as he gets close to the edge is pull Connor down to him and kiss him messily, whispering into his mouth that he’s sorry, that things aren’t right, that he loves him.

Connor comes in Hank’s hand, trembling in Hank’s lap, and it isn’t more than a few thrusts before Hank is spilling inside him. Hank holds Connor to him, and he kisses the tears from his cheeks, and he so, so desperately wishes loving him was enough to keep him from this.

They pull themselves together, and before they go, Hank pulls Connor into him, his hands on Connor’s face while he kisses him.

"I really wish we could have come down off that mountain and gone home together," Hank whispers into Connor's hair. "I'm sorry it wasn't like that."

"Hm. What would we have done, Lieutenant? In a perfect world, of course."

Hank can’t see in the dark, but he knows Connor is smiling.

Hank thinks about warm baths and sloppy sweatpants, eating greasy food and watching shitty movies. He thinks about how he wants to take Connor apart in his bed over and over again and let Connor do the same in hopes that they can put each other back together again, less broken, more complete than they were before. He thinks about how his arm fits just right across Connor's shoulders and how he wants to hold him there until he isn't so high on the feeling, except he isn't so sure he'll ever be tired of it.

He kisses Connor's forehead and says, "You ever just sit around and do nothing, Connor?"

"No. But I'd like to, with you."

"Yeah," Hank says, smiling. "I'd like to with you, too."

When they return to the sanctuary, the other androids are loading into the trucks to go to Hart Plaza, so Hank and Connor climb into one of the cabins, and they sit there, hand in hand, as the autonomous vehicle drives.

It’s snowing, and everything is still, but Hank has seen enough storms to know what the calm before one feels like.

When they reach Hart Plaza, they make quick work of building themselves in behind a barricade. They don’t have more than a few minutes before SWAT and the military begin arriving, and it isn’t long after they do that one of the feds, Agent Perkins, is trying to offer Markus a deal.

Hank and Connor stand there together while Markus speaks with Perkins, until another android comes up to them, shaking Hank's hand and briefly interfacing with Connor. "I'm Josh," he says, looking at Hank. "You're DPD, yeah?"

"Used to be. Kind of doubt I still am after tonight, but maybe it's better this way."

"Maybe it is," Josh agrees. "We had to leave one of our people behind a few days ago. Simon. He hasn't been back, so we figured he must have gotten picked up. I know you've been away, but I thought, maybe..." He trails off, scuffing his boot through the snow and looking at Hank.

"I'm sorry," Hank says. "I haven't been back to the precinct since the accident. I don’t know what happened to him."

"It's okay," Josh says quickly. "We think he's gone. It's just easier to know, I guess."

"Yeah. I get that." If there's anything his years in homicide have taught him, it's that it's always easier to know.

Josh glances at Markus as he hops down from the barricade, sighing and shaking his head. “There’s no negotiating with slavers,” he says.

"What's the plan here?" Connor asks, looking between the two of them. “Markus said we would take the city, but there aren’t enough of us for that. Not with the army out there.”

"No,” Josh says, “but there's a dirty bomb in the city, and we have the detonator. I would be easier if it didn't come to that, but Markus will do what he must." Josh glances at Hank. "It won't kill us if we have to set it off, but it will kill you."

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that, then," Hank says. Josh is suggesting that perhaps he should go, but there's nothing for him to run to beyond these walls - even if he wanted to, he won't get through any of the checkpoints.

But it doesn't matter. Everything he has is here anyway. 

There are sirens pulling up close, and when Hank looks out to the street, it isn't long before Jeffrey is pushing through the SWAT team and the feds gathered on the street. "Hank!" he calls when he sees him inside the barricade. "Jesus Christ, what are you doing?"

Hank glances at Connor, who shrugs, so he climbs the barricade over to the other side and goes to meet him. He realizes Gavin Reed and Chris Miller are there, too, in uniform, watching from where they stand in the crowd.

"Don't shoot," Jeffrey says when the SWAT team raises their guns. "He's one of mine."

"Not anymore," Hank hears Gavin say. It occurs to him that there's nothing stopping him from beating the shit out of that rat bastard on the street now, and that's at least a comforting thought.

"Hank," Jeffrey says when Hank reaches him. "Shit, what are you..."

Hank takes his badge from his pocket and hands it over. "I told you we're on the wrong side of this, Jeff."

"I know. I know you did, and I believe you, but I can't stop this, Hank. Perkins is serious - he'll order the attack, and you'll be killed. I don't understand why you're always so quick to throw your life around like it's nothing."

Hank doesn't know how to explain that his life matters more to him tonight than it has in years, so he just reaches out to shake Jeffrey's hand, pulling him into a hug.

"I sent you a letter," Hank says to him. "That doesn't explain it any better than this, but I'm sorry, Jeff. There's no point in living just for the sake of it."

Hank turns to go, and he's halfway back to the barricade before he hears someone following him. He turns, thinking it's Jeffrey trying to stop him, but it's Chris instead, clapping Hank on the shoulder when he catches up with him. "This all feels too fucking familiar," he says when he falls into step at Hank's side. "Never quite solved the last mess, so I can't say I have high hopes for this one, but I'm not standing out here with them." He nods at the SWAT team behind them, taking his badge from his belt and looking at it once before dropping it in the snow. "My dad used to say the only way to be a good cop was to not be one. System's too broken."

"I wish that wasn't true," Hank says.

"Yeah." Chris sighs. "Me too."

"Perkins thinks our lives are worth more than theirs, at least. Maybe us being in there will stop it."

Chris huffs a small laugh at that. "The thing about shit like this, Hank, is that it's real hard to stop"

 _Yeah_ , Hank thinks. _I don't really think so either_.

But when they reach the barricade, Chris climbs it anyway, reaching out from the height of it and offering Hank his hand.

Connor is waiting for him, helping him down, but Hank and Chris are barely on the other side before the first grenade is thrown in. Hank sees it, but Connor is faster, diving into the two of them and throwing him and Chris back behind cover.

"Perkins, you motherfucker! Two of my people are in there!" Hank thinks he hears Jeffrey yelling out in the street, but his ears are ringing too much for him to really make the words out.

His protests do nothing to stop it. Another grenade follows, and Connor braces himself against Hank, trying to shield him.

Hank has been in enough hostile situations to know they're usually over as quickly as they begin, especially under circumstances like these, where the two sides are so unevenly matched. His hearing is muffled, but he looks around and sees the damage - biocomponents strewn about, androids screaming, blue blood in the snow. 

"That barricade isn't going to stop them," Chris mutters at Hank's side.

 _It was never going to_ , Hank thinks.

Two more grenades hit the ground, and then the first of the soldiers traverses the wall, and they start firing. Bullets echo off scrap metal, and Connor grasps Hank's arm once before he moves. He kicks a dumpster into one of the soldiers, knocking them aside, and then he dives into the fray, grabbing one of the wounded androids and pulling her back behind cover.

"We have to move," Connor says over the din, an arm around the android’s shoulders.

Hank thinks that's what the soldiers want, that they're being herded, but Connor isn't wrong. They'll be shot if they stay here.

So Connor goes first with the wounded android, picking a path through what little cover they can find, and Chris follows, even if they're just being driven back the way they're meant to be. But Hank's ankle is bad, and he's slower than usual, and it isn't long before he feels something strike his back.

The thing about being shot is that it doesn't feel like anything at first, no more than a pebble flying up and nicking the skin. Some people don't even realize it's happened until the blood loss symptoms set in and the pain starts flaring, localized at first, and then spreading outwards. 

Hank has been shot before, though, so he recognizes the sensation when it happens again.

He looks up at Connor, and he realizes that he knows, too.

They make it back to the edge of the camp before Hank's vision starts swimming. He sinks back against the wall, and he feels Connor's hand on his arm.

And still the bullets are flying, and there are guns trained on him, and Hank thinks he's going to be hit again until Connor pushes him aside and steps in front of him, until blue blood bursts from his back and he slumps to his knees.

"Shit," Hank chokes out. He forces himself up, gets an arm around Connor and pulls him back. He feels another bullet catch his arm while he presses his hands to Connor's chest, trying to stop the bleeding. He doesn't care.

"Hank," Connor whispers, a static hitch in his voice. He's shaking the way he did in the mountain, the way that meant critical thirium loss, and Hank doesn't know he's sobbing until he hears the wretched, broken noise tearing itself from his throat.

"Hey," Hank says, getting a hand on Connor's cheek. His vision is spotting from the blood loss, and it takes every bit of strength he has in him to keep himself upright. "Connor, look at me. You're okay. You're okay, baby."

Beneath him, blue blood mixes with red in the snow.

Hank looks up. He sees androids cowering against the wall and Chris holding up bloody hands as he puts himself between Markus and the soldiers, and he sees Markus taking Josh by the hand and lacing their fingers together, grasping him by the back of the neck.

Hank thinks they're going to die here just as Connor says, "We're together."

Hank sobs as he collapses at Connor's side. He manages to pull him into his arms, pressing their foreheads together as his vision goes black.

Everything is so loud.

And then, suddenly, it stops.

* * *

Hank has dim memories of being picked up and carried, a few of sirens blaring, but when he wakes fully, it's to stark white ceilings and bright fluorescent lights. His side aches - shit, everything aches. He tries to sit up until someone gets a hand on his shoulder, forcing him back down.

"Hank," someone says, and he recognizes Jeffrey's voice. "Hank, you're in the hospital. They had to operate; you were shot."  
So was Connor.

"Connor," Hank manages to get out even though his mouth feels like cotton. Connor was with him, and now he isn't, and the whole damn point of everything was that they stay together. "Where's Connor?"

"He's..." Jeffrey is starting to answer, until Connor walks through the door. He's dressed in clean clothes and his hair is combed except for that one piece that will just never stay, and he stops when he sees Hank awake, a small smile spreading across his face.

"Hi, Hank."

Honestly, the first thing that crosses Hank's drugged up mind is to wonder why Connor looks so good and he feels like shit. "You got shot, too," he says instead, which is marginally better.

"I fix up faster than you do," Connor says, ducking around the bed to Hank's side.

Hank realizes then that there's another empty chair pulled up beside him, and that Connor has been there for a while.

"I'll give you two some time," Jeffrey says, clapping Hank gently on the shoulder and getting to his feet. "I need to go visit Chris anyway."

"He's okay?" Hank asks, relieved.

"Better off than you, anyway," Jeffrey says. "I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Yeah," Hank says, because it's the best his foggy brain can muster at the moment.

"See you, Captain," Connor says, and Hank isn't sure if he's more surprised by the cheeky little two fingered salute Connor gives him or that Jeffrey actually smiles at it.

"Hey, Jeff," Hank says as Jeffrey starts towards the door. "What's going to happen?" To me, for what I did, Hank means, and Jeffrey seems to know it even if he can't get the words out.

"I'll let Connor explain it, but I think you can expect a full-pardon for what happened at CyberLife. It would be too difficult to prosecute anyone for helping androids after last night. I can't keep you on the force after you went rogue - there's not much getting around that - but I'm under the impression that you may not entirely mind. And I can let you resign, so you'll keep your pension."

"That's it?" Hank asks, and Jeffrey laughs a little.

"Connor can explain the rest of it. I'll see you two later."

Hank wants answers, but he wants Connor more. He reaches out, fumbling for his hand, movements a little clumsy still from the anesthesia. Connor catches him, winding their fingers together and holding Hank's hand between his.

"You're okay?" Hank asks.

Connor nods. "There was a CyberLife store just a few blocks away with supplies and biocomponents, and some of the Jericho androids are good with repairs. They took me there after the attack was called off."

Hank doesn't even begin to understand. "Why did they call it off?" There was no reason for them to.

"Here," Connor says, reaching for the remote. "It's easier to show you."

The first news channel they flip to is running video of the conflict, some taken from the news helicopters and some from the soldiers' body cameras. Chris gets the most attention - they keep cycling back to him in his police uniform, putting himself in front of Markus. It makes sense why the media would latch onto him - he’s a cop, and human, safe and familiar.

But there's also footage of Markus holding Josh's hand and touching his cheek, of the look they give each other when they think it's over. There's footage of Connor pushing Hank out of the way and taking a bullet for him, of the two of them trying to save each other, holding each other in the snow. There's even footage of a PL600 - Simon, Hank assumes - being released from holding at the DPD, of Markus, Josh, and North waiting for him, pulling him in as they all embrace one another.

"It's going to be a while before some things are sorted - labor laws, property ownership, all of that,” Connor says. “But congress wrote a provision recognizing androids as having free will and autonomy, so...we're free, at least. We finally looked like living people to them."

Hank tries to speak, but the words just won't come. He settles for squeezing Connor's hand instead, knowing that he knows.  
"I fed Sumo for you," Connor says. "I'm glad you kept him."

"If I had known you were coming, I would have cleaned my house."

Hank is joking, but Connor gives him an impossibly fond look and says, "I like your house."

Hank thinks about the android in the mountains with the pretty brown eyes who just wanted a home and a dog, and he thinks about how he's cried more in the last week than he has in his life, for Cole and for Connor, except that for once he's managed to keep the thing he loves.

Hank is in the hospital for seven days. For four of them, he has a night shift nurse named Jodie who thinks he and Connor are cute, and who doesn't tut about Hank's IVs or his stitches if Connor climbs into the hospital bed with him in the evenings.

"We should get her something before you're discharged," Connor says from his place at Hank's side, curled against him and tucked under his arm.

Those are the best nights. They lie there with the news on at a low volume, the television lighting the otherwise dark room with a blue hue, and it feels so much like those nights at the cabin, except that this time Hank isn't lying here wishing that tomorrow wouldn’t come, isn't thinking that he already knows he'll lose Connor or that he just wants to hold him as long as he can.

He still can't quite believe his good fortune.

They both know things aren't fixed. There's a lawsuit being brought against CyberLife that will be tied up in litigation for a while, and androids can't work yet. There are plenty of people who are sympathetic, but there are many others who are afraid of what they don't know.

Nothing is mended yet.

But at the end of the week, Hank walks out of the hospital, and through the door of a house that isn't empty anymore. Sumo almost knocks Hank over greeting him, until Connor hauls him off by the collar, laughing, and tells him to sit.

They draw a warm bath, because Hank hasn't felt clean since the crash - bathing at the hospital isn’t the same. He pulls Connor back against him in the water and he traces the freckles along his inner thighs and the indents above his thirium pump where the bullets tore through him. Connor presses his forehead to Hank's neck and forgets to breathe while Hank wraps an arm around him, and Hank can't believe he ever thought that profound stillness would be unsettling at all.

And afterwards they order a pizza from the shop that makes them especially greasy, and they watch a shitty movie, whatever they can find playing. Connor sits close to him on the couch, wearing one of Hank's old band t-shirts and a faded pair of sweatpants, while Sumo snores in the corner.

"Would you hate it if I put my LED back in?" Connor asks at some point.

Hank looks over at him in surprise. "No," he says honestly.

"I've been thinking about it, and I don't want to pretend to be something else."

"Yeah," Hank says, pulling him in and kissing his forehead. "That's okay."

And Hank isn't at his best - his side still hurts, and his arm, and his ankle - so he doesn't make good on all the things he told himself he would do if he ever got Connor in his bed.

But he does fall asleep holding him, kissing the back of his neck once and thinking that it doesn't matter, that they have nothing but time.

Hank dreams of Cole and his laughter as he soars on the swings at the park, and he wakes in a warm bed to a cup of his cheap coffee on his bedside table and the sunlight coming in, to Sumo barking outside, to Connor's smile and Connor's mouth on his and Connor’s fingers threading through his hair, to a promise of something brighter, and the sunlight coming in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you liked this, it was originally a thread, and I write many other threads like it, some of which don't make it onto AO3, and also yell about Hank and Connor a lot over on [twitter!](http://twitter.com/Jolli_Bean) You can also find me on [tumblr](http://jolli-bean.tumblr.com)


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